


punch drunk

by powerandpathos



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternative Universe - Private Investigator, Angst, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2020-12-17 14:49:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 65,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21056204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos
Summary: Self-dismissal is easy in the P.I. business — there are too many other lives to dig through and piece apart and questions to answer to waste time figuring out his own. Guan Shan's business is an honest one finding dishonesty, and it’s one he’s been running well enough for a while.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> before we start, just know i don't know where/if this is going and neither should you.

It's too cold for this kind of work tonight, but Tianjin is a sprawling port city used to weathering the bitterness and the glacial wind, and bracing well enough for the next silent snowfall to descend. Boats are moored along the promenade and against the docks, their still, elongated bodies rendered limp on the frozen Haihe River, others moved southwards for the season or out to sea for a chance of catch, but otherwise the city continues as normal — if only taking the chance to look up more than usual. 

Hunkered down on the back seat of his car, Mo Guan Shan feels his breath settle like new frost on the landscape of his cheekbones, and he blows ineffectually into his fingerless gloves. His last heatpack ran out two hours ago, and his fingertips are turning a shade of violet as he lights up a final cigarette, window of his 2002 VW Jetta cracked just enough. He needs to wrap this up soon. No headlights, no engine, no heater — it's fucking criminal while January has its claws around the city, and Guan Shan's not getting paid well enough to freeze his balls off and take photos of two adulterers fucking. 

He takes a drag and buries himself further into the scarf around his neck. He flicks through tonight's gallery, each one worth a clean divorce and a prenup in front of the right lawyer. Wrong lawyer. Guan Shan doesn't care. He's got what he needs, but he can charge hourly for this and he knows he’s capable of more. 

It’s the usual kind of show tonight, well-scheduled and stupid. Different characters, different hotel rooms or short-term rentals, the same intentions. Guan Shan has gone from client to client over the past five years like flicking through TV channels, workflow steady enough to pay for two packs of Hongtashan’s a week and a deposit in his mother’s account which, according to her, he doesn’t need to make. 

It’s an excuse to hear her voice once a week, well-scripted, Guan Shan’s own answers well-rehearsed on the other end of the line, two provinces and countless cities apart. _Are you eating enough? _(No.) _Are you sleeping enough? _(No.) _I don’t need my son’s money if he can’t afford it. _(She does; he can’t.) He knows she’s asking other questions behind it all, too. _Why did you move? When will you come back? Will you come back? _These are the ones he doesn’t have a secret answer for, and tells himself that _I don’t know _will be enough for now. It’ll have to be.

Self-dismissal is easy in the P.I. business — there are too many other lives to dig through and piece apart and questions to answer to waste time figuring out his own. He can hide from them well enough in this world, pulling back estranged children and helping others escape; digging up lost wills and forged contracts and forever revealing broken tokens of trust. His business is an honest one finding dishonesty, and it’s one he’s been running well enough for a while. He has a name for himself in this city — not a big one, nothing ostentatious and easily found, but present enough for someone who’s looking.

It sits strangely in him, even now. That people go to him for help. For answers. Sometimes he wants to tell them to fuck off and help themselves, loneliness and introversion warring inside of him, but sometimes, like now, curiosity gets the better of him. That’s what he tells himself, at least.

Li Jingyi found him through a friend of a friend — Guan Shan hasn’t yet found out who; his client history has the potential for it to be some politician’s wife or one of Li Jingyi’s staff — but it’s a usual case: the surreptitious monitoring of an unfaithful husband. She’s made it easy for Guan Shan. _Unfaithfulness_ isn’t the question Guan Shan had to answer for her. Well-documented evidence is. He’s been on the case for a month, traced credit card statements and hire car movements and online history — and tonight’s the night. 

He’s traced Li Jingyi’s husband to the edges of the Binhai district tonight, close enough to the river to feel its painful northeasterly breath; close enough to the tracks at Tanggu station that it feels like the ground shakes itself with the cold. Mr Huang’s mistress lives in a one-bed apartment with a molding kitchenette and a fold-away table, and they share hotpot twice a week when he’s in town from a subpar hall near the bank where she works. It’s where, two years ago, they met. She was working behind a desk, he was cashing a cheque from a successful freight movement into Bohai Bay, their nascent romance so transactional. So boring. So quickly evolved. 

Guan Shan doesn’t dwell too much on the semantics or logistics of it all. It’s 2.37am. 

Tonight, there’s a money shot waiting for Guan Shan, and he glances at the fire escape jutting out from the building beside him. The building’s old and there’s a small chance the rusted metal will collapse out from beneath him, but he shuts the car door with a muted thud and pulls himself up with cautious steps, shying against the biting cold. Five flights up, Guan Shan crouches down on a corrugated ledge that creaks ominously when he shifts his weight. It bodes well enough; he takes his chances a little more freely these days.

Things have grown momentarily still through his target’s window, a game of shadows playing off mirrors and glass — enough inactivity for Guan Shan to set up a mini tripod and a remote shutter release that lets his hands stay in his pockets, risking exposure only for a mouthful of laced coffee from his thermos. He wastes five minutes counting passing cars below, a couple of electric bikes drifting silently beneath a criss-cross of electricity wires, one or two sedate bicycles working their through, the riders’ breath cloudy and creeping. 

Guan Shan’s own car sits perched on the sidewalk, half-obscured beneath the awning of a vegetarian café with boxes of fat _baozi _lined up in the windows. In answer, Guan Shan’s stomach growls with a painful twist. He’d finished a packet of snow cookies over an hour ago, white powder residue left on the upholstery of the driver’s seat, but jobs like this always make him hungry — for food, for the bustle of action, for a slice of violence that Guan Shan swallows whole with a quick shutter speed snapping its jaws like a tiger. 

Motion through the windows catches his attention, and he looks across the narrow street to see his client's husband getting to his knees with his mistress' leg hoisted over his shoulder. Guan Shan raises his eyebrows and adjusts the camera until they're well-placed in his viewfinder. 

_Guess the fucker wasn't doing that enough for his wife. _

Mr Huang isn’t a big man, toned enough to suggest frequent visitations to the gym, softness around the middle that hints at the unfortunate hastening end of middle age. A stripe of dark hair leads down to his hips, flecked with grey. Guan Shan supposes Mr Huang must like that this woman is smaller and younger than the one to which he’s married, quick to laugh, quicker to fake an orgasm, and easy to carry about the room — the same way Guan Shan knows Mr Huang likes his clothing branded, his beer imported, and his swimming trunks one size too small.

A few final shots for the road. Guan Shan watches through the viewfinder while Mr Huang’s jaw works and his mistress’ body grows taught. He waits until the woman has a fistful of Mr Huang's hair, head thrown back, neck long and arched, chest heaving, mouth panting, eyes screwed shut and—

'Yeah, fuck this,’ Guan Shan mutters.

He starts packing away his camera. There’s a prickly heat on his skin like a rash that he ignores, and he swallows the last few dregs of cold coffee from thermos, zips up his weathering backpack, and yanks his hood over his head. He’s not thinking about the last time he got on his knees for someone; the last time someone might have dared to put their mouth on his skin and tasted his flesh.

_Smoke, the needle of a tattoo gun, rice wine sucked from his lips. _

_Goodbye, lover— _

Guan Shan grits his teeth while he unfolds from his crouch. The sweet, smoky memory of sex before betrayal still flits in and out of his head when it wants like a vengeful wind, and he has an SD card full of images from tonight that makes that memory hard to push away, a tickle in his throat that makes eyes water and his throat difficult to clear.

Nothing like a little infidelity to make a heart ache.

Guan Shan shakes himself into movement. He presses his hand to the ice-cold railing of the metal fire escape when a flicker — something, some small, imperceptible movement — catches his eye. He looks across. 

A hundred windows stare back at him, some lamp-lit, some curtained, some pitch black and vacant. His eyes should latch onto the apartment he's spent a whole night scouting, but instead they fall above it — three up and one across. It's been dark all night, no movement. Guan Shan hadn't scouted the surrounding apartments, but the shadow standing in front of the curtains now lit by dim yellowish lighting makes him second guess — another reminder that his lack of thoroughness has made him lazy, and vice versa. Overlook something once, and he’ll do it until it bites him — and scars.

Self-reprimanded, Guan Shan crouches on the stairwell; the shadow doesn't move. It belongs to a man's body: tell-tale straight waist and broad shoulders, hair cropped, motionless behind the gauzy curtains. 

Someone less suspicious might have made the usual assumptions: watching TV, talking to a friend, waiting for a partner. Watching. Waiting. But they're too still, and Guan Shan’s been raised on visitation times and triple-checked locks and learning that kindness has never come cheap. He can hand out suspicion like White Rabbit candy at New Year. It itches at him like a mosquito bite, swollen and raised, drawing blood when he scratches, a bittersweet relief of being _right. _Knowing he was right to question. Right to judge. Right — always — not to trust. 

Watching the window, this bite _stings._

It takes a few minutes before the shadow moves. Guan Shan counts the seconds down with his fingers twitching against the fabric of his jeans, half-pulse; half-mechanics. His stomach is knotted and tight. He hears the pulse in his bloodstream and reminds himself to breathe it through. _In, out, steady now. That’s it. Let it go._ A beat passes.

The man raises his arm.

In his hand, thirty feet away, Guan Shan sees the blocky outline of a steel barrel. In an instance, he knows too well how this scene is going to play out like an old noir thriller and then—

_Bang. _

_Bang. _

_Bang. _

It's loud as the click of a staple gun against a wall, lost in police sirens and car horns and slamming doors and all the other boorish cacophony of Tianjin at night. 

Guan Shan sees the slight tremor of gunfire recoil in this man's shoulder. The stiff swing like a dropping pendulum as he brings the gun back to his side — empty. Bullets buried in a body Guan Shan couldn't see. 

_Fuck. _Guan Shan drags himself out of lockdown. _Fuck, _he thinks, thoughts needle-sharp and scrambling at the same time. He scrabbles for his things, hands shaking. _Fuck fuck fuck fuck. _

Mindless, Guan Shan squeezes the lens cap off his camera, brings the window into frame. Presses the shutter. Once, twice. The spot between his temples is pounding. He imagines the man — _killer_ — staring down at his victim. Pleased and proud. And then he turns, still a blacked-out shape in the lamplight, and opens the curtains. 

Guan Shan takes the shot — and goes still.

He realises the city has gone quiet. He hears his mother’s voice in the back of his head, her quiet questions unanswered. Thirty feet away, and an open window would let another bullet slide well through the space between them. Thirty feet away and with a good aim, Guan Shan has been a sitting duck for a bullet in his brains. 

The last photo stares up at him brightly on the LCD screen. Guan Shan’s thumb hovers over the buttons on his camera, zooms in until a face, static and pixelated, makes itself known. A stranger. 

Guan Shan doesn't know the man. His features are an entirely unfamiliar landscape. Too soft for his body, thin lips and hollowed eyes. 

Staring straight at Guan Shan. 

Guan Shan jerks back, hands planting themselves behind him on the rusting metal of the fire escape. His head hits the railing behind him, a sharp-dull thud at the back of his skull, ears ringing. The metal reverberates while Guan Shan fumbles for the zip on his backpack.

'Fuck,' he hisses, tugging at the zipper. There’s no way the guy could have seen him — no flash on his camera, everything but his face covered in black cloth, nothing that could compel anyone to look across right to the spot where Guan Shan had been perching. Guan Shan shouldn’t exist. But the heavy weight of that look is unmistakable. 

Guan Shan gives up the fight with his backpack, throws his camera in it, and slings it half-open over his shoulder. He doesn’t want to look, but he does it anyway. Across the cityscape and the street plummeting down between them like a torrenting valley, Gaun Shan stares back towards the window — and the man is gone. 

* * *

‘Did you tell anyone else I was gonna be there?’ 

‘What? Like who?’

‘Did you _tell _anyone I was gonna fuckin’ _be there_?’ 

Li Jingyi’s lips are pursed, her face pale and drawn, distorted by shadows in the doorway of her hotel suite and the green glow of a fire exit sign. She says, ‘I don’t think I’m paying you enough to talk to me like that.’

‘I don’t think you’re paying me enough to have some fuckin’ _psychopath_—’ Guan Shan chews off the end of the sentence, the gristle of it getting stuck between his teeth. Li Jinyi’s a woman in her mid-thirties with a fuck-off diamond on her engagement ring and a wedding band that has grown loose on her fingers. She’s grown thinner since she first approached Guan Shan, and Guan Shan suspects the lawyer’s fees she’s been paying are worth more than his annual rent. 

He breathes heavy, assesses her, and analyses. Reminds himself of the kind of woman standing in front of him, twisting the wedding band around and around and around. The kind to grow fretful and mindless. Not the kind to get messed up in murder. 

She’s not that type of vengeful; Guan Shan’s knows what that looks like.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Guan Shan mutters. He tugs out a batch of freshly-printed photos from his bag, the smell of printing ink fumes still fresh. He’d taken them in the dark and from a distance, but his camera is expensive and he shoots in RAW. The subject of the photos is unmistakable. ‘Here,’ he says. ‘This should be enough. I’m done.’

He should’ve gone home, not rushed to get them printed in the middle of the night and driven to his client’s hotel room, drunk off tiredness and sweating with anxiety. But he wasn’t going to be sleeping on anything but a deflating air mattress that left him staring at the ceiling for half the night and staring at the other photos for the rest of it.

The other photos. The man. Totally unrecognisable. Totally expressionless. An indecipherable look that says, _I see you. I know you’re there and I see you. And I know that you see me. _

Guan Shan has the face of a murderer printed out in his bag and— 

He spits at himself. He’s acting like a civvy watching horror movies too late at night — jumping at shadows and conjuring dark possibilities behind his eyelids every time he blinks or thinks about giving in to sleep. He doesn’t know enough to make the kinds of conclusions that he has. He doesn’t know that there was a gun. He doesn’t know that there was a victim. All he knows are shadows and a face looking out.

‘Hey. Are you listening? This isn’t enough.’

Guan Shan zones back in. He plays Li Jingyi’s words over, a scratched record on repeat. His gaze snaps. ‘Enough?’ he echoes, levelling her with a stare. ‘D’you want me to shoot a fuckin’ porno? That kind of enough?’

She steps forward. Guan Shan gets a noseful of perfume and the near-touch of her robe, moonlight silver and made of silk. ‘The lawyer said visual _and _audio.’

Guan Shan takes a measured step back. ‘Look. I don’t know what kind of lawyer you’re payin’, but he’s a shit one if this isn’t good enough for him.’ He narrows his eyes. ‘And I don’t tap phones, if that’s what you’re lookin’ for. I told you that on day one.’

‘Because of the law or because you don’t know how?’

Guan Shan snorts. ‘I don’t bite to that shit.’ He stopped trying to prove himself to people who asked him to a while ago. ‘I got what you asked for. Evidence that your husband’s a cheating shitbag. Again, we’re done here. Final payment by the end of tomorrow. As we _agreed—’_

‘I’ll pay you extra,’ Li Jingyi cuts in. ‘Tap him and I’ll pay you extra.’

‘I don’t want your money,’ Guan Shan says, not bothering to point out that there’s a difference between needing it and wanting it — but whatever. He thinks about shoving her out the door and making the most of the mini bar (well-stocked) and the bathtub (six-foot and pristine) and the sheets (Egyptian cotton and unslept-in). He thinks about sitting down at his desk (second-hand and close to collapsing) with a few beers (lukewarm) and a pack of cigarettes (half-empty), and plugging his photos into a database and seeing if the stranger has a record. 

‘What’s this really about?’ he asks. It’s not usual for him. It’s not like he cares. But her insistence sticks at him, and there’s the sting. He already knows the answer, but he has to be right.

When he asks again, Li Jingyi looks down. There’s a vulnerability in the motion, but Guan Shan knows the anger that sits there too. Festering. A rotting thing that never sates. 

‘It’s about getting everything from him,’ she tells him eventually. ‘I want him to pay.’

He’s heard her story before, and it’s predictable, in a way. The woman scorned. The rich guy with everything to lose who probably, predictably, won’t. He thinks of someone he used to know who had everything, and he thinks of what that made them. ‘It won’t be enough,’ Guan Shan says. He picks up his bag. ‘Trust me — it never fuckin’ is.’

* * *

It’s 4am by the time he gets back to his apartment, the winter deep enough for darkness to stay for a few more hours yet, and cold enough for an icy breeze to make its way through the crack in one of the windows his landlord still hasn’t coughed up the money to fix. And Guan Shan won’t push. The guy lets him pay cash.

Five minutes in and he acknowledges that he’s predictable in his own way too: beer, a cigarette in one hand, the other typing out the password for a database he really shouldn’t have access to. He picks at a flimsy dinner (breakfast?) of chicken stew and _mahua _gone stale. His vision is blurry and sore as he flicks through the photos on his camera’s SD card, enough that he can’t tell what’s pixelation and what’s the exhausted haze of his own mind. His laptops sits on a secondhand desk made of cheap, unvarnished plywood that has bent over time and stands on repurposed hairpin legs, and a bare lightbulb flickers above and swings with overhead footsteps or the slam of a distant door.

He slips through the necessary protocols and then through the firewalls, and his finger hovers over the ‘Upload’ button for facial recognition searches. Does he want to know? Does he want to get into this? Stupid questions. Since he took the photo, he’s already been scratching. Guan Shan exhales a drag of his cigarette, snags a bite of _mahua_, tastelessly dense and doughy between his molars, and clicks.

The search takes a few minutes, combing through nation-wide CCTV footage and pre-uploaded images and questionably acquired data from a few dozen mega corporations, during which time Guan Shan has lit another cigarette and fetched himself a second beer from the kitchen. He’s popping the cap on it, sloping back to his desk, when his eyes catch on the screen.

There’s a result, the contents of which are hidden behind a neat square of text.

_Classified? _

Guan Shan quickly places the beer down, and he hunches over the screen. His eyes dart across the page, fast enough to strain. 

_‘Your search is classified and the activity as such is unauthorised and has been logged with the Department of—Fuck!’ _

He lurches back, reads it once more, and then his legs are pushing him through harried, well-practiced paces. His feet thump against the hardwood floors; the neighbours will be up soon enough, racketing on his door, threatening to call the landlord — or the cops. 

Guan Shan drags a hand through his hair. Despite the chill, he can feel himself starting to sweat again. It’s still dark outside, and his blinds are drawn, but it doesn’t get rid of the feeling. Of being watched. Of being on show.

It’s happening again — someone looking at him through a window. Someone who _knows_.

There’s only one thing to do. Guan Shan goes to the desk and yanks the portable hard drive from its USB slot. With a thrust, it lands aimlessly onto the air mattress across from him. He looks around until his gaze catches. There’s a paper weight on his desk, a bronze lion his mother got him for his first apartment. It’s solid and hefty when he picks it up — it’ll do the damage.

Guan Shan slams the lid down on his laptop, stares at it for a few moments, then grimaces, braces for impact — and swings.

Metal and plastic go flying. A spring plinks against the already-chipped window pane behind the desk. The remnants of his harddrive plummet like shrapnel from a failed rocket down to the floor. Impossibly, Guan Shan’s headache worsens.

He looks at the technological ruin laid waste on his desk and reaches for his nearly burnt-out cigarette.

Logically, he knows it won’t matter now. Anyone who’d been looking will have a trace, an approximation of his location. Usually, he’s as careful as he can be, using a half-decent VPN and searching most things from a café, library, or a neighbour’s unprotected WiFi network. Only stupidity had gotten the better of him now. Stupidity and tiredness and fear.

He has half a mind to turn up at Li Jingyi’s door and take her up on her offer. She’d been right to goad him; wiretapping was _child's play _compared to whatever this is. It would be easy money and two happy parties. Some small compensation to the pain that pricks at Li Jingyi like a bed of nettles.

Guan Shan kneels down to pick up the shrapnel until he has a tidy pile of metal scraps in his palm. He finds an old takeout bag under his sink and, depositing the body of his wrecked laptop, ties the knot on it tight. 

Who knows if they’ll come knocking — or if. But sunlight is picking itself up over the horizon with tired arms and legs, the room filling with a muted yellow-grey haze that promises snow, and Guan Shan has never had time on his side. He grabs his backpack and car keys from the doorway and slips into a pair of basketball shoes.

It’s quiet outside his apartment, the halls empty and hallowed, caught strangely between the time where early commuters are yet to wake and night-shift workers yet to come home. Guan Shan is grateful for it — no witnesses. He’s learned his lesson; he can’t throw the remnants down the garbage chute for his block. Instead he makes his way a street down, through the door of another block’s unlocked back entrance. He’s been through it before — the rooftop is unmonitored and left cracked open by young kids sneaking out for a smoke at night, and it makes for a good setup for stakeouts, apartment blocks towering around either side and half the city’s low-income residents (and Guan Shan’s low-paying clients) holed up inside their walls.

This time, he doesn’t go up. The fire-exit door for the underground garage opens easily, and he steps his way through the concrete dark to the main garbage room, smacking a mask in place over his ears and across his mouth. Even with the thin veil of fabric, the smell hits him in the back of his throat and makes his eyes water, gag reflex kicking in reflexively. He tries to ignore it, breathes through his mouth: human waste and rotting animal flesh and who knows what fucking else hidden away from the public eye, and the sharp stench of cleaning chemicals that try and fail to cover it. 

He makes quick work of it, scattering pieces between trash bins the size of small cars, and then he’s ducking out and heaving for cleaner air, dragging it in through his mouth until he’s left with the smell of the city’s usual pollution. He needs a shower.

Dawn has settled when he gets back to his apartment, pinkish and offering a dusting of quietly falling snow, tarmac thawing and gutters glistening with ice, and Guan Shan skids to a stop across the street when he rounds the corner. There’s a car idling outside the main entrance of his building. It looks new. 

He ducks back around the corner, and keeps his eyes on the rearview mirror of the car. His pulse rattles deep in his ears like a drumbeat. _Focus_, he thinks. _Analyse. _

His brain steps into gear: it’s a Zotye Z700 — black, two years old, freshly waxed. Too rich for a place like this, but not a luxury import. Guan Shan offers himself a glib compliment for remembering to bring his camera, and he doesn’t recognise the driver’s face in the mirrors as he peers through the viewfinder and slowly, steadily, zooms in. 

He doesn’t need to recognise much, though. Black suit, white shirt. Short hair just recovering from a buzzcut. Guan Shan knows the car and driver will point to government before he even runs the plates through the DMV system.

_Fuck, _he thinks. _They always work too quick._

He puts his camera away and comes at his apartment block from another street, hood up, mask hiding half his face. Sharp relief pricks at him — there’s no one watching the side entrance. He pulls his hood tight around his face as he toes his way across the street and deftly picks open the side door, kept locked from the outside. 

He pauses when he’s inside, an ear perked for listening. He won’t even try for the elevator, but the side stairwell is silent. Disgruntled, Guan Shan starts the climb.

His heart is beating steady by the time he hits the fifteenth floor, and he’s careful as he steps out into the main hallway and lets it shut soft behind him. Wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, he poises for another listen. 

Nothing abnormal: kids getting ready for school, parents shuffling them out the door before work, the shrill chatter of a couple bickering.

He shuffles down one hallway, rounds the corner of the next — and stops himself short.

Guan Shan’s grown particular over the years. An easy way of saying hypervigilant, or cautious, or scared as shit. Checking for lights once, gas twice, doors thrice — or until he’s satisfied. Easy break-ins, fires, thefts, murders, rapes. He’s seen enough to practice what he preaches; he’d hate himself if he had to clean up his own messes. 

So it begs the question. 

Why would he leave his door open?

There’s a Vipertek VTS-T01 in his backpack, 23 volts disguised as a flashlight, and it takes Guan Shan three seconds to switch the power to ‘ON’ and the voltage to ‘High’. Energy thrums in his palm, and his hair rises away from the hair on his arms. 

He’s learnt to walk softly, to make himself small and unremarkable in a crowd. He doesn’t make a sound as he crosses the hallway. Inside, he can hear the quiet shuffling of papers, of clothing being disturbed, the tell-tale squeak of kitchen drawers being opened and cupboards being shut with muted care. A soft yellow light effuses through the crack in the doorway, lamplight set to low.

Guan Shan forces himself to focus on the wall across from him, lets himself go blank, swallows the panic — just enough to let himself breathe. Are they looking for the laptop? How did they get it down to his own apartment? Do they think he knows something? Who’s the guy in the photo? Do they know that it was even Guan Shan who ran the search, or just some unidentified IP pinned to this spot, honed by cookies from online shopping and food delivery orders and credit card applications? Guan Shan’s gaze goes determined, and grim. If they don’t know now, he’s not going to let them find out. 

Somewhere in the building, freezing water pipes creak with the morning rush of hot water, like old bones waking up from sleep, and Guan Shan suddenly feels the cold.

_One. Two. Three—_

He doesn’t wait. Barges his way through the open door, shoots across the open space of his apartment to where the man is standing over his desk, sees a flash of a reflection in the window opposite — and presses.

There’s a grunt of pain, and the man jerks with the voltage, Guan Shan’s arm thrumming with the charge as he makes contact. He grits his teeth when the man doesn’t go down, pressing the taser harder into his ribs, an arm reached up to lock around the man’s neck, but instead the man twists and gets an iron hold around Guan Shan’s wrist and squeezes until it _pops. _The taser clatters to the floor and spins across the floorboards. 

The man is taller than Guan Shan by three, four inches, and an open palm whistles towards Guan Shan’s face like a swipe of extended claws. Guan Shan ducks, barely, knowing with a sinking feeling that he’s not fast enough, not big enough, and it’s only a brief struggle until there’s another hand on Guan Shan’s neck, knees being kicked out from beneath him, and his cheekbone is colliding and bruising against the floor.

A knee digs sharply into his back; his hands are pinned behind him while he struggles. _‘Die, fucker—’ _he tries to make out, but his words are garbled, mouth mashed into the wood, and the knee in his back, the hands holding him down… 

Let him go?

There’s a silence, brief and staticy like the breathy silence between a lightning bolt and thunder. Guan Shan doesn’t even move. Is there a gun to his head? He waits for the click, the firing of a bullet he won’t feel and— 

‘Mo Guan Shan?’ the man asks, and… fuck. He isn’t some government official with an aptitude for self-defence. Guan Shan knows that voice. He should’ve known the back of the head and shoulders that came with it before he passed his own threshold. It comes at him quick like fireworks colliding behind his eyes: the mountains, a sky full of stars, an engine purring, growing quiet; a too-quick heartbeat that makes him sweat all the way home. 

_Smoke, the needle of a tattoo gun, rice wine sucked from his lips. _

_Shit. _

Guan Shan twists until he’s on his back. Without resistance, he shuffles back with a kick against the floor so he can sit up, brush away the hood, tug off the mask. 

His words are a snarl. ‘Get the fuck out of my apartment, He Tian.’ 

Straddling Guan Shan’s lap, stunned and mute, He Tian starts to grin.

‘Hello, lover.’


	2. Chapter 2

Guan Shan tries to get through the morning on three cigarettes, and tastes failure when he unwraps the cellophane wrapping from his second pack. He’s supposed to be quitting — it’s what he’s been telling his mother — but it’s not so easy when there’s no one around to hold him accountable, and it’s not so easy when a guy like He Tian shows back up in his life after a five year period of absence and lights a match over a wound still dripping with gasoline.

Cauterisation. That’ll be He Tian’s excuse.

Guan Shan stares at himself in the mirror, water running from the sharp tips of his wet hair, down the slope of his neck, collecting tremulously in his eyelashes and making a damp ring around the neckline of his shirt. Halogen light flickers above him, washing out his already too-pale skin, and his knuckles can’t tighten any further around the edge of the sink. 

He Tian is drinking beer in his apartment at five in the morning, and it’s just like old times. Before he left for the army or navy or IAU or wherever the fuck he went. Taking up space in Guan Shan’s living room and passenger seat and his bed through military college, leaving him with a dropped bomb of betrayal disguised as truth and leaving Guan Shan to act like the disposal unit and clean-up squad in one. Fuck him. 

Fuck. Him.

Guan Shan hadn’t found a big enough city to hide in.

He spits into the sink and presses his face dry with the hand towel, stubs his cigarette out into the ceramic to deal with later, and he doesn’t falter as he slams the bathroom door behind him and stands before He Tian with his hands in fists at his sides. He Tian looks up from where he’s been eyeing the books on the roughly constructed bookshelf beside the desk. A book on forensics, another on homicides. A volume or two from last year’s _Criminal Justice and Behaviour _journals. A neurotic series of short stories on adultery. Two guides on the basics of criminal psychology. Commissioner reports, annotated and scribbled on. Legal documentation firmly bound with bulldog clips. Shoe boxes that rattle with five years of loose CDs, SD cards, maxed out and corrupt USB sticks. A whole shelf of archive boxes labelled with a felt marker and Guan Shan’s chicken scratch handwriting. 

He Tian’s beer sweats on the plywood. He’s taken off his jacket, left it hanging over the bag of Guan Shan’s desk chair.

‘I thought I told you to fuck off.’

He Tian looks down, pleased. ‘That was _before _you offered me a beer.’

‘You helped your fuckin’ self.’

He Tian grins, and Guan Shan has to steady himself. He’s being goaded, prodded like cattle into He Tian’s coop of amusements, and he goes into it so easy. Five years, and nothing’s changed. Guan Shan should be better. He should be so much better.

‘You’ve got no right to be here,’ Guan Shan says stiffly. ‘Not after everything.’

‘You’d think that, wouldn’t you?’ He Tian says. ‘But you accessing secure systems _you’ve_ got no right to be accessing—’ He shrugs. ‘It changes things, Guan Shan. You know how it is.’`

Guan Shan wants to punch him; he wants to take a shower. He feels like there’s dirt under his fingernails and no amount of red-raw scrubbing will make it go away. He Tian’s singular, affable shrug says that everything has changed and Guan Shan is still the same.

‘So you’re out, then?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘Five years and now you’re in the department of breaking into people’s apartments without a warrant?’

He Tian smiles. It’s a thin, cold thing. Guan Shan doesn’t recognise it. ‘Where’s your laptop, Guan Shan?’

‘I asked you first.’

A flash of startled irritation. He Tian sets his jaw. ‘Guan Shan, just tell me where—’

‘_I asked you first.’_

‘You—’ He Tian stops. He shakes his head, mutters something under his breath. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I’m out. Honorary dismissal.’

From what department? Guan Shan wants to ask. And for what? Over how many bodies? He won’t get anything like an answer from He Tian. The guy’s been a ghost for five years, a fleeting thought from time-to-time, when Guan Shan’s defences are low and his inhibitions lower. Right now he’s keeping everything so high he’s not sure he can climb the wall to even see over it. He’s going in blind. 

‘And you came to this shithole?’

‘I changed divisions.’

‘You could’ve gone anywhere. Beijing, Shanghai. A fuckin’ foreign embassy in _Mexico_, if you’d wanted.’

‘Oh, sure.’ Something glimmers in He Tian’s eyes. ‘But that wasn’t what I wanted.’

_Tell me_, Guan Shan thinks. _Tell me you didn’t come to Tianjin because of me. Tell me I’m not that important in the grand scheme of your fucked up life. _

He doesn’t want a red string tied around each of their throats, tethered and bound — it’s already too hard to breathe. Hadn’t they cut that last time? Hadn’t that been their finale? The sky full of stars in the mountains, the needle of a tattoo gun, their rice wine kisses Guan Shan hadn’t known would be their last. Neither of them were good at goodbyes; He Tian snatched that opportunity for farewells from the both of them.

He remembers waking up to He Tian’s quiet late-night-early-morning alarms for the airport, the black cars that pulled up outside the apartment, the neatly folded uniform that sat on the dresser the night before, heralding the next day like widow’s weeds. He Tian always thought he was being quiet while he dressed in the dark, spat toothpaste into the kitchen sink, grabbed his keys from the hook, laced up combat boots that pressed heavy into the linoleum — left without a goodbye. 

Guan Shan would pretend to sleep. His breath would come heavy when the door closed. He should’ve seen the routine of it all coming when things went wrong.

He Tian breathes out through his nose. He juts his thumb towards the corner of the room, where Guan Shan — _so fucking stupid _— had left the charger plugged into the wall outlet. 

He asks again, ‘Where’s the laptop, Guan Shan?’

Guan Shan sets his jaw. ‘I don’t have it. Threw it out.’

‘And the data on it?’ 

‘Gone,’ Guan Shan says. And then, before He Tian can ask, ‘_Gone gone._’ Too many rookie errors tonight, but at least he knows how to do a technological clean-up. Hard drive destroyed, SD card wiped except for what matters.

He Tian measures him, dark eyes weighing and considering. Guan Shan wonders what he’s seeing, and the moment gives him an opportunity to do the same, to mark the new lines on He Tian’s skin, one that furrows his dark brows, a few scattered lightly at the corners of his mouth, his eyes. He’s no less impervious, no less intense, clean-shaven and hiding shadows where they shouldn’t have the planes to exist. Older, certainly. But stark in an ageless, ruthless way that clears any doubt that this might be the same boy Guan Shan used to know as a kid. He knows He Tian — he knows the strong outline of him, where he hides his softness, what he looks like when he cries. But He Tian — twenty-seven, captain, major, colonel? Guan Shan doesn’t know him.

Seconds tick by, and Guan Shan wonders if there’s a small war going on inside of He Tian: public and private. The former the kind that wears clean suits, a fresh cut under his jaw line, still pink. An ear piece, flesh-coloured and nearly missed. The outline of a barrel pressing against his shirt in the shape of a Ruger LCP. The latter… something that breathes and used to hurt. Talked about a different kind of life. Kissed Guan Shan on the tender spot behind his ear and said he was _sorry _while he fantasised his exit.

‘Who is that guy?’ Guan Shan asks.

He Tian’s eyes tighten. ‘Who?’

‘The one you’re fuckin’ _here_ about. The one I took photos of.’

He Tian looks even more confused. ‘Wait, you mean you don’t know?’

‘I got pictures of him tonight while I was running a case. I just put them through the system and then—’ _And then you showed up. _

Something about it must tickle He Tian. He wipes at a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

‘Trouble just fucking finds you, doesn’t it?’

‘I’d like to _not_ get arrested if I can help it,’ Guan Shan replies sourly.

‘Fair enough,’ He Tian says, and then, ‘Do you still have the photos from tonight?’

‘I told you. They’re gone.’

He Tian gives him a look. _Come on, _it says. _I pretended to believe you the first time. _

‘I was tellin’ the truth. I wiped that shit clean. I was workin’ a case out by Hebin Park. Some apartment on Jingshan Road—’

‘I know. We got there after he’d finished.’

He Tian’s grim tone makes Guan Shan feel nauseous.

‘So he did kill someone.’ Guan Shan doesn’t make it a question. He’d witnessed a murder and he’d run. His stomach twists, and he wants to pinch at the layer of skin that covers it. _Coward._

He Tian has pulled out a phone from the back pocket of his trousers and is swiping his fingers fast across the keyboard.

‘What else did you see?’ he asks, still typing. ‘Tell me everything.’ 

‘That was it,’ Guan Shan says. ‘Just fuckin’ shadows and lights. I didn’t know if it was real. He opened the curtains and— I think he saw me.’ The chill runs up his spine even now; he remembers the blank stare.

He Tian looks up from his phone. ‘You left yourself _open_?’ he asks tersely. 

That gets under Guan Shan’s skin. ‘I was tracking some guy having an _affair_. You think I was wearing BDU and Kevlar? I _failed_ the police academy, He Tian. They don’t _issue_ that shit to civvies, remember?’ 

A beat passes between them; He Tian has stopped typing.

‘Yeah. Got it.’ And then, astonishingly: ‘I’m sorry,’ He Tian says. ‘Your job isn’t mine.’ 

Apologies don’t sound natural on He Tian’s tongue, and Guan Shan imagines he uses it the same way Guan Shan has learnt to — not an act of sincerity, but an easy way of getting out of a fight. For what it’s worth, it works. Guan Shan is too dumbstruck to bother snapping back. Does that make He Tian the better man? 

‘And what is your new job?’ he presses. ‘I thought you didn’t deal with domestic shit.’ 

‘I do with this one.’

‘Doin’ what?’ 

‘Oh, you know. What I do best.’

_Killing people? Digging shallow graves? Intelligence extraction? _

‘Bein’ a fuck ass?’

‘If I have to be.’ Before Guan Shan can ask another question, He Tian says, all business: ‘Don’t access those channels again, Mo Guan Shan. No digging. No searching. Keep your record clean. I won’t be able to sweep this up again. Even for you.’

Guan Shan stands his ground. He bristles at that last line. ‘Tell me what I’m not supposed to be looking for and maybe I’ll consider it.’

‘You don’t need to know,’ He Tian replies, which is the same as saying, _None of your fucking business. _‘Just trust— Just listen to me. It’s not worth it. It’s a big fucking mess you’re not going to be a part of.’

_Trust me._ Guan Shan narrows his eyes. There’s something about the _convenience _of all this that he can’t quite scratch away. Nothing with He Tian was ever about convenience. Turning up at Guan Shan’s after-school and weekend jobs just before shift end, the rota changing weekly. Getting Guan Shan work that would pay the exact gap in his mother’s wages. Knowing the route Guan Shan took home on the subway and which basketball court he played on near his apartment as a teen.Where his dad used to work, what restaurant he used to own, what cell number and prison number he goes by— None of it was convenient. Everything was carefully considered and expertly mapped out, at first, with all the forethought of an overzealous teenager, and then a young adult working his way too fast up the ranks of military college with a heritage in Triad syndicates. And now… 

‘Did you know this was my apartment?’

He Tian pauses, picks up his beer. He considers it, like he’s wondering if it should be something stronger or if it’s early enough to switch to coffee. Amber liquid glitters as he swirls it, and then pours the rest down his throat. He sets it back on the desk with a dull _plink_. 

‘You’re lucky I’m the one who answered the call.’

‘Fuckin’ hell,’ Guan Shan mutters. He rubs his face with his hands. Of course He Tian would know — of course he wouldn’t have just _let go_ in the same way that Guan Shan did. Painful and severed and gritting his teeth through the healing. Clearly, one thing hasn’t changed: He Tian doesn’t know how to heal, just how to hurt, keeping up a one-sided long-distance relationship for five years that Guan Shan had thought had come to an end.

‘How’s the P.I. business?’ He Tian asks.

Guan Shan sets him with a look. ‘Don’t you already know?’ When He Tian only pops a brow, Guan Shan says, ‘How the fuck do you think?’ He juts out an arm that says, _Look at this place. Look at me. And look at you._

‘You’re too old to be in something for the money.’

The statement’s vicious. Guan Shan raises his eyebrows — his eyes cover He Tian’s suit, top to thousand-dollar bottom. ‘You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?’ They both know He Tian isn’t working for a paycheck. He could never work a day in his life. ‘You’re right,’ Guan Shan says. ‘I’m not in it for the money.’

‘I’m right?’ He Tian grins. ‘Never thought I’d hear _those_ words from your mouth. Fuck me, you _have_ changed, Mo Guan Shan.’

_Have I? _Guan Shan thinks. He doesn’t think he’s changed a goddamn bit. He still has to live with his anger and hasn’t felt anything like closeness to another person in years. He still curls his lip when he looks in the mirror and spends weekends working at the shop until he can’t get the smell of gasoline and oil from his skin. He still has to fuck drunk in the dark and can’t eat processed food twice in a row and he still feels a cold-hot throb in his chest when he looks at his tattoo. Their tattoo.

He’s thought of covering it up enough times to lose count, always deciding that it’s too expensive, too time-consuming, too permanent. That something worth burning into his skin in the first place was probably meant to stay there. He won’t accept that it’s nostalgia, or sentiment. It’s not. Frugality just tells him it’s a _waste_.

He Tian’s still smiling, and Guan Shan gives him an easy way out: ‘Don’t let it get to your head.’

‘I think we both know it’s too late for that.’

Guan Shan grimaces. He’s suddenly very, very tired. He’d forgotten about the kind of energy required for a conversation with He Tian, an adrenaline wipeout that could bring him to his knees, bloodied and bruised, make him sleep for a week. He Tian grew up in a place where everyone was ready for a fight, knives at the dinner table, spitting blood and teeth onto the plates through their _pleases_ and_ thank-yous_. 

‘Don’t you have places to fuckin’ be?’ Guan Shan asks. He doesn’t have time to pity He Tian’s childhood right now. ‘Doors to stand next to? Bullets to jump in front of?’

‘As a matter of fact…' He Tian pulls a face, tilts his head just so. A voice in his ear. Guan Shan adds attempting to intercept that particular transmission line to his to-do list. ‘Looks like my time’s up here. Duty calls.’

Guan Shan takes a step back while He Tian slides his jacket back onto the broad frame of his shoulders, fitted pleasingly around the cuffs. 

‘Fuck off, then,’ Guan Shan says. _Please don’t come closer._

He Tian chuckles. ‘Who could refuse a request like that?’ 

He runs his hands down the front of his jacket; his knuckles are scarred, and there’s a slight tremor in the motion. Balled fists fall into his pockets, and his eyes don’t quite lift.

‘See you around, Mo Guan Shan.’

‘Fuckin’ hope not,’ Guan Shan says, and it ellicits a smile, thin-lipped like a crescent moon. 

‘And stay out of trouble,’ He Tian continues, like Guan Shan’s the same unruly kid he used to be. ‘Please.’

When He Tian is gone, Guan Shan recognises the feeling lingering in his wake. He puts a hand over his mouth, and tries really fucking hard not to pay much attention to his heartbeat. He thinks about how He Tian didn’t reach for a cigarette once.

* * *

The first thing he does is get coffee, sugary sweet and dark as hell, and then he calls his lawyer. She’s worked for him for three years, made sure his work always stays just the right side of the law, and the call Guan Shan makes now is oddly private — oddly personal. 

He tells her what happened, from tracking Mr Huang down to his apartment to the moment he put his order in for a triple shot with extra syrup at Starbucks and made a WiFi call to her office. He doesn’t tell her He Tian’s name, or give her history; Fan Li is smart enough to pick up the pieces of Guan Shan’s gruff undertone of sleeplessness and too many cigarettes and an urgency for caffeine. Likewise, he doesn’t ask why she’s answering his call at 5.37am on her office line in Beijing.

‘Do you have reason to believe he’ll pass the information you gave him to the authorities?’ she asks.

‘Yeah, but it’s data. It won’t be personal.’ Guan Shan tugs at the corner of a pink sweetener packet. ‘Should I make a report? I’m a witness. I could be seen as withholding evidence.’

Fan Li makes a thoughtful sound while Guan Shan stirs sweetener into his coffee. 

‘You should be fine,’ she says eventually, ‘if we assume your contact has recorded your account. A court can’t charge you for failure to report a crime, not unless you’ve aided or abetted the accused.’ She pauses. ‘Which...’ The question is left hanging.

‘I didn’t.’

‘Good. Then you’re fine. You could ask your contact for a reference number related to his report, if it would make you feel better.’

Guan Shan swallows a mouthful of coffee and runs his tongue around his gums to catch the taste of sucralose. 

‘I won’t be contacting him,’ he says. ‘I’ve got no business with him.’

‘Personal or otherwise?’

‘What does my lawyer need to know that for?’

He can hear her derision from the other end of the phone, her look of accusation. ‘You think I answer these calls for all my clients at five in the morning?’

‘I’d fuckin’ hope so,’ Guan Shan retorts. ‘If they’re payin’ you for it.’

‘Oh, that’s right. Thank you for reminding me that you’re not.’

And the line goes dead. Guan Shan pulls the phone away from his ear and curls his lip. This early in the day, and he’s already pissing people off. Just like old times. He Tian’s presence sits with him like vodka, turning his tongue sharp and head loose; his stomach is cramping bad — lack of sleep, lack of food, too much coffee, too many cigarettes. 

And then he gets a call, and realises the day has just started.

* * *

All the ghosts are coming back today. 

Snatches of conversation like mural inscriptions, scents and smells that flood back to Guan Shan like incense or the headache from smelling gasoline, corporeal shapes and shimmering shadows and faces he has spent some time trying to forget. Old words (whispered), memories (dark and fading), promises (made and broken) — they come back in lucid stages, sitting in the back of his head to gnaw.

Guan Shan remembers things after the call, after _his_ visit, picking through the wreckage and reliving what he’s lived. Things he would soak out with alcohol like vinegar on a stain, things he would dream and re-dream and re-imagine until the honesty of it all became a game of truth or dare. They’re unburying themselves now, claws in the mud, soil under the nails, bone fragments stuck between their teeth, and Guan Shan stands by with the blowtorch.

It’s that (Burning it to the Fucking Ground) or the guilt — it’s that or his father, or He Tian, or wrists rubbed raw with metal, or blood at the corner of his mouth, or silver hair and shivs and betrayal that kisses so goddamn sweet. Guan Shan stands by with the blowtorch, watches the flames, knows that all of it will only burn for so long, but the ashes are a good enough poultice for now. Some of the flames have been burning for a while, owing a smokescreen to the thickening air, and Guan Shan is still grateful for its disguise, the wet char it leaves buried in his throat, blurring childhood and adolescence and everything that followed, those _formative years_ left behind in blissful ignorance.

Guan Shan cleans his apartment. He grounds himself with the mundane: digs the cigarette butts from the bathroom sink; dusts down the blinds and winces at the bright white sky; bottles in the recycling; laundry thrown into a shadowy drawer; the remnants of his breakfast into the trash, soapy dishes dripping dry over the sink.

He gets four hours of shut-eye before their meeting. Li Jingyi has wired her final payment to his account for the photos of her husband, and he takes that and the terse line of thanks in his inbox to signal well enough that his work for her is done — for now. He won’t be surprised if she calls him up again next week. 

There’s usually a lull between clients; sometimes it’s days, sometimes weeks. They’ve overlapped once or twice, but those are singularities, and they get his blood running free. The morning’s call from Jian Yi’s mother makes his blood _sing_.

She’s brief over the phone, which is no surprise. Guan Shan is in the business of withheld information, and what he remembers of the woman consists of sharp edges and cool eyes and an air of dismissiveness that belongs uniquely to the rich and the threatened. 

They meet at noon, halfway across the city in a chain-brand teahouse with a curtain divided between them and the rest of the room’s patrons. Jian Yi’s mother unravels herself from coat, gloves, scarf, and sits in a pair of sleek jodhpurs, leather riding boots, and a cream woolen jumper that gathers around her throat. She is the spitting image of her son, and Guan Shan hasn’t seen him in years.

‘Horseriding?’ Guan Shan asks her by way of greeting.

Her response is all angles: ‘My son is building a steady career for himself with the CPC.’ She gives him an assessing look, and he wonders what she must think of him — his dark eye bags, the marks on his ears from old piercings, the rumpled green shirt he’d found at the bottom of his drawers, the toothpaste stain on the front of his coat. In so many ways, he’s not her son. ‘I’ve heard you might be able to help him.’

Guan Shan drinks his tea. Floral, light — a little too soft for what he needs right now. His mind is running fast. Jian Yi and the country’s single-party politics? Of all the things he thought would come out of the woman’s mouth, this isn’t it. They’re pieces from two very different puzzles that no amount of forcing could make fit. 

Jian Yi’s mother had mentioned getting off a flight over the phone, but Guan Shan doesn’t feel guilty for having wasted her time or money. He hasn’t bowed to the arrogance of the rich in a while. 

‘I don’t know who you’ve heard that from,’ he starts awkwardly. A small white lie: ‘But I don’t get into politics. To be honest, I don’t know the first thing about it.’

‘Jian Yi will be the youngest acting First Secretary of the Youth League in our history. It’s rumoured he will have a governorship in five years, and then a vice premiership, and then—’

Guan Shan cuts in. ‘Sorry, but I’ve gotta ask.’ He almost laughs: ‘We’re talkin’ about the same person, aren’t we? Don’t you need, like, some fancy college degree for that? Maybe a job in oil and a term in volunteering?’

The woman doesn’t blink. ‘Jian Yi graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from Tsingshua and consulted to Norinco while volunteering in Tibet.’

Guan Shan says, ‘He’s fuckin’ textbook, then.’ 

She reaches for her gloves. ‘I can see this was a waste of my time.’

_Shit. _Guan Shan puts a hand out. ‘No, wait. Mrs— Just wait. Tell me what you need from me. You’ve come all this way.’

Maybe that does it. The distaste that comes from _wasting _things. Guan Shan’s tattoo itches under his skin while Jian Yi’s mother settles. 

‘Jian Yi said the two of you were friends,’ she says.

‘In school, yeah, but…’ He exhales, breathy and amused, feeling like he’s aging. ‘We haven’t spoken in a long while.’

‘Clearly.’ 

He knows it isn’t an accusation, but it stings like one. How many people has he dropped over the years? Kept so far out of his radar that he doesn’t even know they’re gunning for power? He can’t get the image out of his mind— Jian Yi standing at a lectern for the CPC. That stupid fucking smile on his face, blond hair shining like portrait gilding under a conference hall spot light. 

What the hell happened to him? Was he still following Zhan Zhengxi around like a lost dog? Did he still laugh, loud and startled and contagious? Or was that reserved for others now, muted behind heavy doors and trained into publically appropriate submission?

‘What kind of help?’

She nods, like he’s finally asking the right questions. ‘There have been a number of murders over the past year. Three politicians dead, ten or more civilians — enough disparity that no one has yet connected the dots.’

‘Except you,’ says Guan Shan.

‘Anyone can watch the news or read the paper,’ she remarks. ‘You have to know what you’re looking for.’

‘And you think… Jian Yi might be a target? Because of his role?’

‘He knew there would be risks when he became interested, but he’s not working on a county level anymore. This is national.’

‘How does his father feel about that?’ Guan Shan asks — dares to ask. He kept tabs long enough. Second day of high school, an empty classroom seat, Zhengxi running around the place like a bull in a china shop and his heart on show. It didn’t take long to figure out where Jian Yi was forced to spend his years of adolescence, or by whom.

His mother’s face tightens. ‘His father has no say in the matter.’

‘Yeah? And why do I find that hard to believe? If you wanted to meet, you could give me some honesty.’ He takes a sip of his tea, going cold. ‘If I remember right, you never wanted him too far in the public eye. Like you were hidin’ him from someone.’

‘The public eye is exactly where he needs to be. The safest place is the eye of the storm.’ Her voice lowers. ‘Or it used to be.’

Guan Shan leans forward. ‘He’s in danger?’

‘He could be. It’s why I’m here.’

‘Did he ask you to come here?’

‘There are three people dead already, and he didn’t want you to be a fourth.’ The looks she gives him is startlingly young. ‘He told me explicitly _not_ to come here.’

Guan Shan bites back laughter. ‘Like mother, like son,’ he says wryly.‘Does he have a guard now?’

‘Only one that the Party has given him.’

Guan Shan considers her. ‘I’ve seen protection around him before. Back in school, He Cheng’s men—’

‘Contractors for Jian Yi’s father.’

Guan Shan lifts his eyebrows in question. That hadn’t seemed to stop her from employing them before, or at least _tolerating _them. Guan Shan remembers the men back in school, hulking figures cut in black that roamed the edges of the school parking lot, a black motorbike thrust to the front like a gloomy beacon, waxed and shining until Guan Shan could see his face in the paint.

‘They’re not the kind of people he needs around him now,’ Jian Yi’s mother says. ‘And— I don’t know that they can be trusted anymore. Not with this.’

‘You think they might be the problem?’

‘It’s possible.’ Her voice turns bitter, words murmured near the rim of her teacup. ‘I wouldn’t put it past Jian Feng to want to kill off his own son.’ Guan Shan grimaces, but she continues after a sip. ‘There have been… other attempts. But Jian Yi was trained well, as much as I hated it. Jian Feng wouldn’t use tactics he knows Jian Yi can evade. And it’s too messy. Jian Feng engages in other activities, stays out of politics unless it’s necessary, doesn’t oversee assassinations.’ Her fingers drum against the wooden surface of the table. ‘Not like these.’ 

Guan Shan plays her words over, riddled with subcontext and dark history. He remembers how quickly Jian Yi could change an expression; how shadow and light played their games on his face until you weren’t sure who you were talking to that day. The four of them had all been plagued with their own shit, they’d just all thought their own shit was worse. Guan Shan wonders now if maybe Jian Yi _did _have it worse, and they were all just caught up in his family drama, pawns and young kids pushed around the chessboard by their fathers’ messes. 

Guan Shan feels tiredness tugging at him. ‘Do you mind?’ he asks, pulling out a pack and digging in his pockets for a lighter. ‘I need a smoke.’

Jian Yi’s mother lifts her brows. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘Only if you’re offering.’

* * *

They sit there until the pot of tea is finished and the winter sky is casting a charcoal hue across the sky, grey snow clouds darkening the streets, lamps flickering into brightness between the commercial towers studded with light that stay on all night. 

‘I know someone,’ Guan Shan says. His voice is a little hoarse; they’ve smoked half the pack between them, one after the other, the camaraderie in it strange but calming. Jian Yi’s mother sits there like she has nowhere at all and everywhere to be at the same time. Guan Shan feels a little drunk. 

Three hours in, and he doesn’t know that he can help her. Not with this. 

A political hitman. Someone taking out early Politburo potentials, men and women scouted for the seventh generation of leaders. Jian Yi isn’t there yet — he’s too new. But his mother was right: five years, and he’ll be somewhere higher, and five years is nothing when a generation of politicians can last ten or fifteen. 

‘Someone like who?’ Jian Yi’s mother echoes.

‘You’re scared of the people the CPC are puttin’ around Jian Yi, but he can’t be on his own. I know someone. He’s government—’ He holds up his hands when she looks ready to protest. ‘--but he’s… safe. Ex-military. You can trust him enough.’

Her eyes, a little red-rimmed, narrow. ‘Do you?’ she asks, reaching for Guan Shan’s half-empty pack. She places another cigarette between her lips, draws the flame of a lighter close to her skin, and takes a drag. ‘You trust him?’

_I used to, _Guan Shan nearly says. But they both know that’s not good enough. 

‘He’s one of the best,’ he says instead, truthfully. He doesn’t know what else to give. ‘Put someone safe around Jian Yi while I figure out the rest.’

‘I’ll consider it,’ she says. ‘In the meantime, what can you do for me?’

Guan Shan squints. ‘You want me to find out who this person is, build a case against them, and expose them. That’s my career and my life you want me to put on the line.’ He picks at a hangnail, sore and bruising on the corner of his thumb. ‘You should’ve gone to another politician. A journalist. Someone who does this kind of shit for a living.’

‘You’re a private investigator, Mo Guan Shan,’ she says. She leans in. ‘What can _you_ do?’

Guan Shan exhales forcefully. He considers another cigarette, but he’s starting to feel sick, and he needs a mind that isn’t driven by nicotine and a dry mouth with the grim aftertaste of tobacco. He knows what she’s asking, and he knows what the stakes are. More importantly, he knows what he’s got to lose, and he’s already put those two cards on the table: his life, and his career. No kids, no partner. No friends. He can earn enough money to put his mother on a plane, but she won’t be a threat to anyone if he’s dead.

He swallows. His life and his career. And what use are those?

With a sigh, Guan Shan plucks a napkin from the holder, withdraws a pen from the inside of his jacket, and clicks the top.

‘This,’ he says, scratching ink into the paper, ‘is my salary.’

He slides it across to her, and she glances at it for less than a second. ‘I’ll double it,’ she says. ‘If you can get him safely through this period—’

‘That’s not necessary,’ he says, grimacing. 

‘Yes, it is. My son’s life is on the line. It’s compulsory.’

Guan Shan eyes his scribbled offering. He’d already up-marked by twenty percent. He knows what the woman can afford. Maybe she’s not divorced, but Mr Jian’s quarterly deposits into her account are probably a whole other level to a court-ordered alimony.

‘Fine,’ he says. ‘But I’m cashing in on that extra money as a favour. One favour, whenever and in whatever capacity I want.’

She lifts a brow. ‘How will you know I can even grant it?’

Guan Shan snorts. He lets his eyes travel the length of her: manicured nails; greyless, platinum blonde hair; the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, her mouth. There’s money in her pores. 

‘I won’t,’ he replies eventually. ‘But I’m pretty sure you won’t have a problem.’

* * *

Guan Shan peaks through the blinds of his apartment while his phone rings, dial tone steady. Darkness, full and rich, already envelops the city, and Guan Shan is more than ready for the day’s ending. He props a hip against the sill while he casts his eyes around, watching traffic roaming below, pedestrians that linger a little too long in the cold. He Tian’s visitation has nudged his vigilance into antsy agitation, and standing anywhere that isn’t five feet from his front door or window seems like indolence. He bears the icy draft that slips through the cracks, fingers warmed around a mug of coffee that is sweetened and spiked.

The call connects. 

‘Well, well, well. Long time no speak, Mo Guan Shan.’

Familiarity aching, Guan Shan asks, ‘Is now a good time?’

‘I’m on an island off Indonesia, the water is crystal clear, and the breeze between my legs right now is _godly_. Depending on your point of view, now is a perfect time.’

Guan Shan rolls his eyes. ‘Your mother was in Tianjin this morning,’ he says. ‘We had tea.’

In the background, Guan Shan hears a muffled round of swearing, a bottle crashing to the floor, fumbling. He waits patiently (impatiently) for Jian Yi to gather himself. 

‘She _what_? I fucking _told her_—’ More muffling. Another voice, low and indistinct, mutters in the background. ‘Won the award for absentee parentism for most of my childhood and _now _she’s worried about me? This is _rich_.’

Guan Shan isn’t touching that conversation with a barge pole. ‘She said you’re in trouble. Asked for my help.’

Jian Yi scoffs. ‘No offense, Guan Shan—and I’m sure you’re a _perfectly_ good P.I.—but I think that was one of her many first mistakes.’

‘Was she right?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘Have there been attempts?’

‘Hello, how’re you doing, any threats on your life lately?’ Jian Yi’s sour tone leaks through the phone. ‘Nothing like reconnecting with old friends to ruin a perfectly good holiday.’

‘I’d say sorry if I didn’t think she was right.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Jian Yi retorts dryly. ‘You never apologised for shit. It’s what I liked about you.’

_Liked. _Guan Shan takes that for whatever it is. He can hear Jian Yi moving around, a door clicking shut, and a thicker silence shrouding the call like Jian Yi has locked himself away in a closet.

‘She’s right,’ Jian Yi sighs. ‘There’ve been one or two tries. Not that you can do a fucking thing about it. I just have to take the punches and roll with them.’

‘Hiding on a fuckin’ island is taking them?’ Guan Shan retorts. 

Jian Yi’s response is thick with indignance: ‘That’s got nothing to do with it, _thank you_. I’ve worked hard enough these past few years to earn a few days of uninterrupted tanning.’

Guan Shan remembers summer holidays, trips to the coast, He Cheng gloomy and dour at the wheel, an ocean road whipping past in a stream of blue, Guan Shan scowling at He Tian’s pawing affections. The memories dampen, and Guan Shan forces himself to look out onto the street. Smokescreens and ashes.

‘You always did burn up nice in the sun,’ Guan Shan says.

‘Oh, call me Icarus,’ Jian Yi quips. With conspiratorial flair, he adds, ‘Martyrdom does well in a campaign, you know.’

For a second, Guan Shan considers it: the elaborate scheme, the self-pity that would get Jian Yi public sentiment (if not votes) if they discovered he’d been a target. It’s a viable ruse, but it’s messy, and Jian Yi has never been that dark. It takes a different kind of person to run that campaign of treachery, someone silver-tongued and immune to the pain that comes with the aftermath.

Guan Shan takes a large mouthful of coffee, holds it until his gums burn, then swallows. He can feel the ghosts shedding their skin like PVA glue, his world rearranging and rebuilding around himself, smoky apparitions becoming versions of their fifteen-year-old selves, clothes slightly coloured, voices slightly deeper, _slightly slightly_ like it’s all trying not to scare him. It does scare him. So many years, so many defences set in place, and none of it fucking matters. A few phone calls, a few familiar voices, and Guan Shan is staggering around in the rubble.

‘Stay where you are,’ he says. ‘Let me do some digging before you come back to China.’

‘No can do, I’m afraid. I have work to do and a flight to catch at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow.’

Guan Shan grits his teeth. ‘D’you think that’s smart?’

‘Aw, you haven’t questioned my intelligence since _high school_. It’s just like old times!’

‘You never fuckin’ went to high school—’

‘Hey, I went eventually,’ Jian Yi protests. ‘Don’t shame me for being a late bloomer.’

Guan Shan shakes his head. Jian Yi, the practical joker. He’s quick on the other end of the phone, witty with his humour. Quick enough to talk fossil fuels and social welfare and justice reformation? Guan Shan doesn’t know. Quick enough to disarm a man with a gun or a needle aimed at his skin? Maybe. He’ll have to be if he wants to set back down on this soil. At least until… 

‘There’s somethin’ else,’ Guan Shan says. ‘I’ve arranged it with your mother—’

‘Can’t wait already.’

‘—I’m gonna ask He Tian to watch you.’

Silence passes, and Guan Shan can hear Jian Yi’s breathing through the phone. _Four, five, six… _

Eventually Jian Yi says, ‘As much as I’d like the old band back together, I… don’t think he’s got time for that, Guan Shan.’ Awkwardly, like he’s not sure Guan Shan has realised, he says, ‘Look. I thought he would’ve told you but— He Tian got deployed a while back.’

Guan Shan pulls a face. What does it say, he wonders, that Jian Yi considered a possibility where He Tian hadn’t told told him? A world where He Tian had gone off to face some unknowable enemy and found an unmarked grave in the sand without Guan Shan _knowing_. How had their parting— their _severing _looked to the outside world? Had it been that brutal?

‘I knew,’ Guan Shan says, feeling like there’s grit in his wounds. With a little spite, a twinge of selfishness, he adds: ‘And he turned up at my door at four in the fuckin’ morning, so I’m guessing he’s back.’ 

He regrets it as soon as it’s out. The connotation is thick and heavy, and it says everything Guan Shan used to try and hide. Everything he used to want with a poison need that tasted cherry-red and screamed DANGER — and now shudders at. It prickles in his chest, a seeping nausea in his throat. He pictures He Tian standing at his door, a shadow between the frame, and considers how he no longer trusts He Tian’s hands.

‘Holy shit…’ Jian Yi breathes out. ‘This really _is_ like old times.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Damien for proofreading this for me! 
> 
> If you would like to support me, please check out my [Tumblr](http://agapaic.tumblr.com) to learn more.


	3. Chapter 3

It snows for three days, a north-westerly storm cast down from Russia that grounds Jian Yi’s plane in Seoul. He misses five meetings and a conference, attends three more through a WebEx connection on his hotel WiFi, and Guan Shan, who hasn’t prayed since he was twelve, accepts the news as a fortuitous act of God.

‘They’ll think I’m not taking this job seriously,’ Jian Yi complains to him through an audio message on Tuesday night, and Guan Shan rolls his eyes. He can practically smell the liquor through the speaker. ‘Do you know how much shit I’ve got waiting for me at the office? I’ve had five emails—fucking hell, make that _six _emails from the mayor’s secretary. _Six. _In the last _hour. _Do you _know_ how many I can action from this shitshow of a situation? _Zero, _Mo Guan Shan. Zero!’ He whispers the rest, a twinge of desperation: ‘Another minute in this fucking hotel room and I’ll have drunk the minibar _dry_, and we _both_ know that’s not a position or a bar tab any man should have to face before he’s forty.’ The sound of a bottle cap being unscrewed scratches in the background. ‘Fuck, Guan Shan. I’ve even opened the _tequila._’ A sniff, two glasses clinking. ‘Farewell, dignity. There’s no hope for me now.’

When the message ends, Guan Shan holds his thumb over the microphone icon. He brings the phone close to his mouth.

‘Deal with it, bureaucrat.’

He hits send, lets his phone clatter onto the surface of his desk.

He’s grateful for the airspace deadlock. Jian Yi’s mother has made her first deposit, and three days gives him time to put together a new laptop, work through days of old emails he’s been ignoring, and build up a new case file with Jian Yi’s headshot at the centre of it. There’s a therapy to the process, piecing together visuals and combing through news articles and reports from the past year, keywords: ‘murder’, ‘political’, ‘assassination’, ‘suspicious’.

Jian Yi’s mother is right. The results turn out vague and unconnected, a few pieces on _Reference News_, one or two posts on _China Daily_, local newspaper obituaries that go into little detail. Unsurprising: the CPC’s _People's Daily _reports nothing. Guan Shan would have missed the deaths if Jian Yi’s mother hadn’t given him names, dates, locations. He doesn’t doubt that there are countless who’ve missed the connections, a scant handful who’ve made them and stayed quiet.

Their careers are promising, hopefuls for local governorships, secretaries for municipal leads. Their deaths are, each one of them, different. He prints out the reports, the victims’ photos (unsmiling, employee-issued headshots), scribbles them down in a leatherbound notebook he finds in the back of his desk drawer, along with a pack of nicotine patches, a ball of rubber bands, three condoms — two unopened — and a dried-out stick of chapstick without the cap.

Weng Chu, 43, Chengdu - _hit by train, pushed(?), alcohol in bloodstream (toxicology report?), witness accounts uncertain (rush hour), CCTV?_

Bo Jiang, 37, Hangzhou -_ knife accident in kitchen, hit radial artery, husband witness (suspect? alibi?), emergency services slow response_

Han Xianlan, 31, Guangzhou - _allergy (peanuts), anaphylaxis (biphasic response) caused cardiac arrest, why no EpiPen?_

Wen Ying, 54, Hefei - _car crash, ran red light, collision with freight truck, multiple fatalities, driving at 3am (why?), assumed sleep at wheel (toxicology all clear)_

He draws his thumb over the ink, feels the grooves in the paper, commits their names to memory. He has questions, fewer answers, and only one realisation: their killer, if Jian Yi’s mother is right, is familiar with death. These aren’t political statements or warnings — they’re murderous accidents, well-framed and helped neatly along by a government who doesn’t welcome pointing fingers and too many questions.

Guan Shan leans back in his chair. It’s a Tuesday night, the city snow-silent outside, his ashtray full. His eyes scan the scrawl of notes, the half-drawn doodles in the corners — fanged faces with wild, angled eyebrows, a poor sketch of an apple, a bottle, a packet of peanuts — spine blocked out with ballpoint ink. Question marks jot the page in sporadic gestures like asterisks or stars (he can’t decide), and Guan Shan draws out the framework of 3D boxes until their edges are blurred.

He sighs. If this is true — if any of it’s right, this is more than a case. It’s a scandal; it’s a conspiracy. There are deaths weekly: politicians hung in their offices and stepping from the roofs of city towers, the anti-corruption campaign nudging them with a hand into repentance. Into suicide. Save face, save your gains, save your family’s Social Credit System score.

Guan Shan doesn’t understand it. Why are the names he’s marked down now any different? Why were their deaths framed as accidents, not bundled into the unremarkable cases of suicides that crop up week after week? That would have been easier, wouldn’t it? A false rumour of corruption, of unpatriotism, and an inevitable demise on the pavement fifty feet below?

He’s careful with the message he types out, only considers that it’s past midnight when the text bubble pops up with a corresponding timestamp.

**[00:27:11]:  
** how do you know these ones were killed? what’s remarkable about them?

Jian Yi’s mother replies sooner than he expected.

**[00:32:15] Mrs “Jian”: **  
There was a dinner last year with the president.  
Guests were chosen with a lottery through the CPC — central and local.  
Approximately 100 guests, but all the victims won tickets to attend. So did Jian Yi.

Guan Shan frowns, shoots back a question.

**[00:32:57]:**  
the lottery was fixed?

**[00:33:44] Mrs “Jian”:**  
I can only assume, perhaps in lieu of a selection process? A test?

**[00:35:01]:**  
to see if they carried the party ideals.

**[00:36:12] Mrs “Jian”:**  
I can only assume.  
Those that weren’t in-line with existing policies of the current generation would get cut.

**[00:38:07]:**  
but we don’t know that for sure - i can’t assume this shit.  
do you know what the victims’ ideologies were??

**[00:39:50] Mrs “Jian”:**  
No. They weren’t in any position to write a manifesto.  
But they may have spoken with Jian Yi.

**[00:40:13]:**  
i’ll talk to him.

If Jian Yi doesn’t know, what then? Digging through old emails and phone calls to pull up anything out of the ordinary? This amount of leg work is going to take time, and it’s going to cost him. He has contacts at Telecom and Unicom, but favours like this are never small, and never for free. Guan Shan doesn’t have enough leverage.

He digests the information the woman has given him, and marks _dinner 2027 president? _down in the margin of his notebook. More questions itch at him.

**[00:45:22]:**  
why murder? not giving them a promotion would be a lot easier.

**[00:47:35] Mrs “Jian”:**  
But they would still have their ideals. Sentiment is shifting - but still too slowly.  
It’s being cut at the root.

**[00:48:21]:**  
jian yi isn’t stupid enough to protest.

**[00:49:54] Mrs “Jian”:**  
He’s young enough to hope.  
His preferences still aren’t smiled upon.

**[00:51:12]:**  
you mean zhan zhengxi?

Guan Shan waits ten minutes, but a response doesn’t come, and he turns his attention back to the journal. He chews on his lip, kicks his feet up onto the surface of his desk, and lights another cigarette. Wouldn’t that be enough exposure? A guest list of all in attendance at the dinner to prompt a national inquiry?

_You’re not getting it, _he tells himself. _The government won’t do jack shit if they’re the ones who ordered this._

He rubs at his eyes with his fingertips. He’s throwing himself at the same brick wall again and again, expecting to find a different answer or a new solution. There’s a quote about that, he half-remembers. Something about madness…

A glance outside. The snow, at last, has eased up. The roads will clear in a few hours, pavements piled high with snow and salt, and the runways will be open by noon. Guan Shan can’t waste time anymore; he can only distract himself for so long. He hasn’t found sleep any earlier than 4am the past few days, and he’s not naive enough to head to his rustled, unmade bed now and expect anything less than three hours spent staring at the cracked ceiling,

He gets to his feet, bowing his spine until it cracks sorely, and flicks off the desk lamp. City lights leak through the gaps in his blinds, and he uses the yellowish hue as guidance while he shrugs on his coat, snaps shut the leather journal, and shoves it firmly into the breast pocket of his coat. He goes through the motions like he’s preparing for war: a final drag of his cigarette, ground out into the ashtray, a cursory glance around his apartment, and a parting mouthful of _choujiu_, thick and sweet as it slides down his throat_. _

Over the past five years, he’s willingly (forcefully) removed every saved contact, every possible phone number and email address, every photo, social media page, photo, conversation screenshot. Any way he might make contact or stumble across an old memory, tearing up forgotten moments like ripping out a forest for concrete. It should make it difficult — virtually impossible to get a hold of the man now.

He Tian reaches him in minutes.

* * *

There’s little point taking his car. Guan Shan walks to the 24/7 internet café in half the time it would take to make his way through the snow-packed streets, wheels skidding on ice, foot aching with a perpetual press on the brake. As expected, it’s mostly empty, haunted by an on-duty staff-member and a handful of students holed up in the corner booths with flasks of hot drinks, colour-coded binders, and textbooks strewn with sticky-notes and streaks of neon highlights.

Guan Shan hands over a few loose notes from his pockets at the desk, and picks his computer: screen facing the wall, security camera angled just out of range, the underside of the desk spotted with old chewing gum and graffiti scribbled out in felt-tip on the plywood. Guan Shan doesn’t mind — the computer’s are newly updated, the WiFi fast, and the heating is warm enough that it only takes a few minutes for Guan Shan’s fingers to unfurl from the cold outside while the computer whirrs to life and he plugs a set of USBs into the vacant ports.

No VPN — that would defeat the purpose — but he bothers at least with setting the browser to incognito mode. He’s memorised the IP address, and he taps it out slowly into the address bar. It takes a few seconds to load, a familiar screen requesting authorisation, and the keygen software on one of the USBs plugs in a successful set of credentials. Access granted.

From here, the motions are familiar. Guan Shan had destroyed the digital data from a few nights ago, as promised, but he’d let the printed photos sit in a folder on his bookshelf marked _Miscellaneous_. He Tian hadn’t been quick enough to find them; he’d taken Guan Shan at his word. Guan Shan drags the scanned copies into the search filter for facial recognition, and lets the system work.

He plays solitaire while the results render, keeps an eye on the front door, and only gets three minutes in when the pop-up flashes red and ominous on the screen:

_Your search is classified and the activity as such is unauthorised and has been logged with the Ministry of State Security. All unauthorised activity will be subject to inquiry and action will be taken pending investigation. Obstruction or avoidance of this investigation will be considered a criminal offence and subject to appropriate penalty. All access has been revoked until further notice._

Guan Shan casts his eyes over the alert — and smiles.

The car takes seven minutes and fifty-four seconds to show. Enough time for Guan Shan to wipe his prints from the mouse, the keyboard, set a virus to run on the computer, pocket his USBs, find a shadowed alcove in the alleyway beside the café, and wait.

He watches from the alleyway while snow ploughs and salt trucks roam the streets, shoulder propped up against the wall and folded arms bracing him from the cold. Seven minutes and fifty-four seconds, and the agent (tall without heels; short, glossy bob; heavy-framed glasses on a square-jawed face) gets out of the car.

There’s something familiar about her that Guan Shan can’t place, but he doesn’t linger on it. He watches as she makes her way across the street in certain strides and pushes open the café door with a hand beneath her jacket. When it shuts, Guan Shan steps quickly across the street, beelines towards the car idling on the side of the street, opens the passenger door, and climbs inside.

He turns towards the gun in his face.

He Tian stares at him from behind the muzzle. His breathing is unexpectedly loud.

In silence, Guan Shan watches He Tian’s eyes dart to the internet café, understanding cross his face, anger replacing it just as quickly. The gun drops to He Tian’s lap, but he keeps a finger on the trigger.

‘I thought I fucking _told you_—’ he snarls.

‘I didn’t know how else to get a hold of you,’ Guan Shan protests. ‘Unless you’re gonna shoot my balls off, will you put the fuckin’ gun away? We need to talk.’

It takes He Tian a minute to eventually click the safety into place, and he props the gun back into its holster beneath his jacket. He pinches the bridge of his nose, breathes out through his mouth, then presses a button on his earpiece. In a language Guan Shan doesn’t understand — Arabic? Hebrew? — He Tian mutters something low. Waits for a response. Nods.

‘Hold on,’ He Tian says in Mandarin to Guan Shan. He presses a button, shifts the car into drive—slams his foot on the gas.

_‘Hey!’ _Guan Shan yells, strangled, body flung against the door, the car lurching away from the pavement and gunning down the street. _‘Hey, stop!_ The fuck are we goin’?’ he demands, twisting to open the door. Locked. ‘Let me _out_, dogshit!’

‘I’m taking you to breakfast,’ He Tian says curtly, hands tight around the wheel. An intersection approaches — He Tian yanks the wheel to the right with enough force to throw Guan Shan half-out of his seat and scrabbling for his seat belt, pulse thundering. The tyres skid, and the acrid smell of burnt rubber oozes through the heating vents. He Tian drives on unphased, northbound. ‘You’re buying me a drink.’

‘What about your partner—’

‘She’ll manage,’ He Tian says. He jams his foot down on the brake—_‘Shit, He Tian!’_— and they shudder to a stop at a red light. He Tian’s grinning; red light hits the enamel on his teeth like blood. He spares a glance at Guan Shan, and scoffs at the look on his face.

‘Don’t fucking look at me like that,’ He Tian reprimands, the car jolting into motion again. ‘You started this shit. I’m making sure I finish it.’

* * *

‘Breakfast’ turns out to be two large cups of spiked Yunnan coffee and a styrofoam container of _jianbing guozi _picked up from a stall in the city. Hoisin and chilli sauce seep through the seams of the pancake, fried dough sticks in the middle still crispy by the time He Tian parks up in front of a reservoir.

The water has frozen over, skate tracks cut into the ice; a small flock of geese taps ineffectually at the surface. The silence breaks only between the sounds of their eating and He Tian routinely sucking spilled sauce from his fingertips.

Guan Shan huddles down against the heated leather seat and appreciates the pinkish light of sunrise between bites of _jianbing. _Steam whisps away from the ice as the temperature rises; a lone runner in a thick jacket and balaclava paces the edge of the reservoir from the opposite side. Guan Shan’s eyes follow them until they duck behind the treeline.

His heart rate is still too high, ticked over into the nineties by the coffee that burns his tongue on the first sip. He’d forgotten that He Tian drives like that when he’s in the mood for recklessness: fast and goading and beckoning for a crash, hair on the back of Guan Shan’s neck risen so far from his skin that it hurts. He’s forgotten a few other things too, and he’s glad for it. A thousand questions press at him, suffocating as landfill, and Guan Shan feels their keen sting at the back of his mind: _Why are you back? Where did you go? Why didn’t you say goodbye? Was there anyone—?_

The pack of cigarettes in his back pocket was crushed from the drive, cigarettes crooked but salvageable, and he popped one between his lips the moment the car rolled to a stop. He Tian watched him while it burned down, ash flicked routinely through the cracked-open window, handed him his breakfast with a smirk when Guan Shan tossed the finished butt to the ground.

‘That bad, huh?’ He Tian asked.

Guan Shan bristled and said, ‘This is why I didn’t miss you.’

Ten minutes have passed in silence since. They finish their food, wipe their mouths with napkins, throw the trash into the plastic bag from the stall and toss it onto the back seat of He Tian’s company car.

‘So,’ He Tian says eventually. ‘Are you in the sharing mood yet? What did you want to talk about?’

_Now or never, _Guan Shan thinks. He Tian has held out the hand, and he grabs at it.

‘Jian Yi’s mother came to me for help,’ he says. He marks He Tian’s look of surprise, and then he tells him everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours. It’s a risk he’s carefully measured, the kind he hates himself for settling on, opening himself up for another betrayal, a Saint Sebastian ready for the arrows.

But he comforts himself with this: this is not an act of trust, and he has no arms open in welcome. This is not forgiveness, or a gesture of kindness. This is last ditch as first ditch, because fuck knows Guan Shan would have to go to He Tian eventually. He always does. He’d rather do it now than later with his tail between his legs and He Tian’s smile that says, _I told you so. _He Tian has always held power in his palms, and Guan Shan will bow to that privilege if he gets what he wants.

What’s one more lash of shame with which to scar himself? Immolation already awaits.

When he’s done talking, He Tian says, ‘And what I do I get out of this?’

Guan Shan should have expected it, the response wholly self-serving, but it still shocks him. There’s no room for ambiguity, no chance for altruism.

‘Uh, what d’you want?’ he asks.

This Guan Shan can foresee: the smile, the lean that just barely invades his personal space, the hot breath that washes over his face. He Tian smells dangerously familiar — cloves, neroli; tobacco, rich and heady; the distracting scent of his aftershave, florid and artificially cold like a toothache. It’s a riotous mix, and Guan Shan’s careful not to breathe too deep.

He Tian murmurs, ‘I’m sure I can come up with something, sweetheart.’

He chuckles when Guan Shan grimaces, shying into the edge of his seat, Guan Shan’s discomfort a quiet pleasure that must thrill and disappoint in equal parts.

‘You don’t get to do that,’ Guan Shan mutters, distaste plain. Only the job (the money, the stakes, the curiosity that _burns_) keeps him from opening the door and running as far as he fucking can.

He Tian sighs, disappointment winning over. He concedes, retreats, and leans his head against the headrest, eyes heavy-lidded.

‘Look. It’s touching that you’ve come to me. Really. But I _have_ a job, Guan Shan. And it’s not being a babysitter.’

When Guan Shan doesn’t respond, He Tian looks at him, raises his eyebrows at the unexpected silence.

‘You thought I’d say yes.’

‘Jian Yi could be in danger,’ Guan Shan repeats. ‘You would’ve done anythin’ for him before.’

‘Alright, and what makes you think I’d do anything like that for him _now_?’

Guan Shan chews the inside of his cheek. Does he have to say it? His tongue burns, and it comes out like metal gone through the scrapyard:

‘’Cause I’m _askin’_ you to.’

He Tian lets out a bark of laughter, a sharp and echoless sound. The humour fades while he looks out across the reservoir. The runner has nearly reached them by now, her breath cloudy, arms like pistons through the winter stillness. He Tian’s eyes shudder to track her movements.

‘You know that’s a risk, don’t you?’ he points out eventually. ‘Expecting that to mean as much as you want it to?’

_And you don’t give me enough credit, _Guan Shan thinks. It says enough that He Tian doesn’t think he’s thought this through, or weighed everything out with careful precision. In two days, He Tian has saved Guan Shan’s skin from government wrath in as many times. With prickly, hateful delight, Guan Shan knows exactly how much it means.

He Tian shakes his head, and Guan Shan already knows he’s won.

‘I’ll get a team around him,’ He Tian concedes. ‘Visit him when I can. Where is he now?’

‘His plane was grounded in Seoul,’ Guan Shan tells him. ‘Should be back in Beijing tonight. Are you gonna speak to your brother?’

‘No. I’ll see if any comrades are in Beijing.’ He Tian reaches forward to fiddle with the air conditioning dials. When Guan Shan doesn’t think He Tian will offer anything further, he says, ‘He Cheng retired.’

Guan Shan can’t hide his shock. ‘Retired?’ he echoes. He Cheng can’t be nearly old enough, but Guan Shan doesn’t doubt he has the bank balance to quit. It’s just… ‘I didn’t think you people did that kind of thing. It was always so fuckin’... do or die.’

He Tian only shrugs. ‘Stranger things have happened.’

Guan Shan doesn’t press. His own questions play in his mind.

‘Everythin’ I’ve just told you…’ he starts. ‘You don’t seem surprised.’

‘By what?’

‘Any of it. By Jian Yi. What’s been happenin’ to him.’

He Tian considers him. 'Let me know when you’ve put the dots together. That should answer any questions you have.’

‘Do me a favour and do it for me,’ Guan Shan counters, eyes narrowed. ‘If it’s about my case, you need to tell me.’

‘Need?’ He Tian says. ‘You made it pretty clear a while back that you didn’t want to know anything from me.’

_Yeah. There it is_, Guan Shan thinks. _There. It. Fucking. Is. _

He’s been waiting for this. Five years in the making, and it’s still fresh. But something about the quiet, the burgeoning brightness outside — it’s not right. Where’s the liquor? Where’s the blood? Where’s the precursor to everything they had together before? Music loud enough to shake the walls and shake his bones, anger fracturing him into fragments, pieces glued back together in the morning.

He’s not doing this now. He’s ready for it — oh, he’s ready. It’s been scripted in him. Coded in his veins like tattoos on the underside of his skin. But it’s not right, and he’s not going down without a fight.

He stays silent.

‘Get out,’ He Tian says quietly. ‘I’m sure you know how to get home.’

Guan Shan opens the door, and cold hits him like a wall, all of winter flooding into the hot space at once. One foot crunches into the gravel.

‘Shut the door, would you? You’re letting in the cold.’

Guan Shan gets out. There’s something clouding the base of his throat, but the rest of him is numb. It feels like it used to — that cloud of silence that settled over him in the aftermath, the stillness that frightened him like he’d forgotten how to fight. How was he supposed to live if he couldn’t fight? What else was there?

He stands by the reservoir for five minutes. Footsteps pound against the ground behind him; the runner passes by. He tugs his phone from his pocket, glances at the screen, closes his eyes.

_There will be more, _he thinks, while the sky gleams down at him behind his eyelids. _There will be more than this. There will be others. There have to be. _

There’s heat in his belly, coal furnace kind of hot; it blisters him from the inside-out. The kind of heat that makes him want to get drunk and kiss strangers before he punches them—to lick the blood from their chin and ask them if they’ll treat him the same. This cold out — he shouldn’t be able to catch on fire.

When he turns, the car is still there. He Tian’s legs stretch out long from where he perches on the bonnet. He’s smoking one of Guan Shan’s cigarettes, and Guan Shan thinks about going for his throat while he walks back over and shoves his hands deep in the pockets of his coat.

‘My phone’s dead.’

He Tian shakes his head, stands up. He grounds the cigarette beneath the heel of his shoe, and the jerk of his head is an open invitation: _Get in. _

‘You’re good at this, aren’t you?’ He Tian asks him, twisting the key in the ignition when they’re both inside. It’s not as warm as it used to be. ‘Getting into shitty situations you don’t know how to get yourself out of.’

‘I always know,’ Guan Shan mutters, slouching low in his seat. ‘Got out of bein’ with you, didn’t I?’

* * *

He Tian drops him outside his apartment, mercurial and silent, pulls away with the tyres crunching against grit and the sludge of melted snow. Guan Shan watches until the brake lights fade down the street, and walks into his apartment foyer with his head down. He catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the elevator’s chrome walls, looks like he feels (tired, hungering, drunk without the liquor and needing some).

The bath takes a while to fill, the water hot and liable to burn with a _hiss_, and he cradles his phone between cheek and shoulder blade as he lights a cigarette.

‘I saw him again. I know I said I wouldn’t, but—I did.’

‘Thank you for the faith in my memory, I’m in need of a little more information than that, Guan Shan.’

‘The guy,’ Guan Shan tells her. ‘The contact. The one I told you about—’

‘Jesus, yeah, okay.’ She pauses. ‘Look, I know it’s ten o’clock, but have you _slept_?’

‘I’m about to,’ he admits. He rubs his face with the heel of his palm, takes a drag. ‘Bath first. I feel… Gross. Long night.’

‘Well,’ she says. The pause is uncertain, and Guan Shan grimaces at how he’s made this sound. ‘Don’t drown, please. I’ve got so much work to do I can’t deal with funerary proceedings right now.’

Guan Shan huffs a laugh. ‘Worryin’ ‘bout my death? You’re gettin’ soft, Fan Li.’

‘Don’t tell my partners,’ she gripes. ‘They’ll snatch my clients before you can say _possession._ Speaking of—’

‘Yeah. Sorry. You gotta go.’

‘I have a client waiting,’ Fan Li agrees, but doesn’t hang up immediately. The bath is almost full now; Guan Shan rests his cigarette on the lip of the tub, a fleck of ash dropping into the water, then strips off the rest of his clothes and flicks his fingertips against the surface. ‘Is there anything I can help with? Two calls in one week…’

She leaves it hanging, and he knows what she’s trying to say. They used to go a month without talking unless things were bad, and even then he tried to keep the contact to a minimum.

‘No,’ Guan Shan says. ‘I guess not.’ He winces as he sets a foot in the water, tolerates the burn, settles his whole body in and leans his head back against the tiling. He’s careful not to get his phone wet, and settles his cigarette back between his fingers. ‘I’m good. I just wanted to— Fuck, I dunno.’

‘Are you safe? This contact of yours… You’re not in trouble?’

He knows she doesn’t care; he’s a job. Compared to the rest of her high-rise clients who talk in bank figures and assets, he’s a downright liability.

‘You’re not my mother,’ he says, a little more sharply than intended.

‘No, I’m worse,’ Fan Li throws back. ‘I’m your _lawyer_.’

_Shit,_ he thinks. His tongue works slow in his mouth as he tries to get the words out.

‘I’ll wire you some money,’ he tells her. ‘For your time. Didn’t mean to waste it.’

‘Get some sleep, Guan Shan,’ she says, sounding tired. He tries to picture her face, her features unknown. ‘I’m here if you need.’

The call ends, his phone thumping against the bathmat, and Guan Shan’s fingers curl around the edge of the tub. He throws his cigarette into the toilet bowl, hears a hiss.

_Need? _he thinks squeezing his eyes shut as he sinks down, water rising, fully submerged and holding himself down until his lungs burn. _I don’t need a fucking thing._

* * *

Jian Yi touches down at PEK airport by 8pm that evening, enough time for Guan Shan to get some sleep, pick up groceries at the local JinKeLong supermarket, and cook a batch of stew that should tide him over for the rest of the week.

He leaves his apartment at 7pm, and the snow and sludging traffic turns the hour-long drive to Beijing into three. Watery clumps of snow still fall from the sky, windscreen wipers shuddering against the glass, and a flask of coffee and a playlist of 2000s rap music keeps him company. He plugs in the address Jian Yi’s mother had given him when he’s close enough, cuts through the city and follows a dark, winding G-road up past an outlying residential district and further into the hills. He drives slow, chain smoking steadily with the window cracked, mindful of ice and the ABS light that flashes on the dash, and eventually pulls up to a set of pillars and a small security booth set at their side.

He hands over his license, bears the flashlight that gets beamed into his face, and nods as the guard lifts the barrier and waves him through.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Guan Shan mutters as he pulls up onto the driveway, peering up.

The house is a grand monolith at the foot of the Western Hills, all glass and concrete, teetering on the edge of a podium; high enough to look out and catch the lights of Beijing’s CCTV tower in the CBD; out far enough from the city that no one can get a good look in without a telescopic lens. Three cars sit idly on the tarmac, all less than a year old. Red lanterns hang from a barren blossom tree before the doorstep. Guan Shan is at once envious and disturbed. He thinks of eyes on him, the unshakeable feeling of being watched. What the hell would he do with that much space?

Jian Yi answers the door after a minute, greets Guan Shan with an overzealous hug (unreturned), and offers him a glass of scotch (accepted and quickly swallowed). Guan Shan assesses him while he leads the way through the open-plan lower floor to the kitchen. He hasn’t changed. He’s taller, fills out a suit better than he ever did as a pale, skinny teen. His hair has grown long, and he gleams with his newly-acquired tan. He looks almost unbearably like his mother. His gestures are still erratic, his smile impossibly wide, the confidence nauseating. Guan Shan can’t look at him too long.

‘This house is your first problem,’ Guan Shan tells him, glancing around. ‘Someone could be watchin’ your every move. How well d’you trust the guard out there?’

‘Straight to business, is it?’ Jian Yi asks with a sigh. He leans against a granite-covered island in the middle of the kitchen, tops up an already half-full glass of wine. ‘The windows are tinted. Remote-controlled opacity. No one’s looking in unless I want them to.’ He adds proudly, ‘Japanese technology.’

'Right,' Guan Shan says, peering around. He takes stock of the place, keeps his body at an angle so the glass is never parallel to his back. There's something un-lived-in about the place, an empty largeness that makes Guan Shan feel small. He remembers He Tian's apartment: mattress on the floor; crockery layered in manufacturer's dust; the echo from speaking too loud.

There are touches: marigolds on the dining table through a connecting archway, cushions on the sunken sofas, a fire glowing hotly in its burner—but they’re distractions.

Jealousy holds him back from being too impressed, from wondering too long how much a place like this could possibly cost. What kind of emptiness, he questions instead, could Jian Yi be trying to fill with a place like this?

Jian Yi swallows a large mouthful, sets the glass down with a _clink_.

‘Fuck, you really haven’t changed, have you?’ he asks, smiling to himself, a private bubble of reminiscence that Guan Shan struggles to indulge in. ‘And getting into the P.I. business? Honestly.’ He points a finger. ‘Would _not _have called that one.’

‘Could say the same for you,’ Guan Shan counters. ‘You went from rockstar to Chairman Mao in a fuckin’ blink.’

‘Found a different calling,’ Jian Yi says, shrugging modestly.

_Typical_, Guan Shan thinks. _Realises he’s good at something then doesn’t want it anymore. Aren’t death threats enough to quit this whim?_

‘You’re all good as long as you stick to the limelight, huh?’ Guan Shan asks.

Jian Yi holds his hands up. ‘We can’t all be anti-bourgeois cynics, old friend.’

Guan Shan narrows his eyes. ‘What exactly _is it _that you stand for?’ he asks. ‘’Cause your mother seemed pretty vague about those details and I need to know. Gotta be pretty fuckin’ revolutionary for someone to want you dead.’

Jian Yi’s smile tightens. He pours himself more wine.

‘There was a fuck up. I said some shitty things I shouldn’t have to the press. I’m not _exactly_, uh, pals with the party whips right now. There’s a dossier on it.’ He waves a hand dismissively and stifles a yawn. ‘I’ll get you a copy.’

‘I’ve got questions. Your mother wasn’t particularly _forthcomin’_.’

Jian Yi snorts. ‘Well, _yeah_,’ he says. ‘Expecting that woman to be forthcoming is straight-up waiting for blood from a stone. You want my advice? Ask her for double and run with it. Don’t try and get into any of this shit.’

Guan Shan knows Jian Yi doesn’t hate his mother. The sentiment doesn’t run that deep. Jian Yi’s is distrust veiled by bemused annoyance, an acknowledgment that she might have cared for him, in her own way, but not in any way that was tangible. Absenteeism that solved itself just when he needed her most. A saviour that showed itself only when things got _bad. _Didn’t she know that he needed her most when things were good?

‘She was too young and I guess I’m too much,’ Jian Yi had once said. A sleepover—Guan Shan forgets now whose house they were staying at, which ceiling they whispered their amateur confessions towards. Zhengxi had fallen asleep a while back, and Guan Shan listened to his words with the solemn silence of a priest. Jian Yi put his hands behind his head, shrugged. ‘I don’t blame her. She couldn’t _help_ it, y’know? My dad never helped her for shit. But she just leaves and—aw, I know I deserve it. Doesn’t mean I like it, though.’

‘She’s worried about you,’ Guan Shan says now. ‘She has a right to be.’

‘And what is she hoping she’ll get at the end of this, huh? Some miraculously patched up parent-child relationship? Yeah… No. Doesn’t work like that.’ He chuckles, bone-dry, lifts his glass until the kitchen lights refract across the granite. ‘Nothing says I love you like buying your son an armed protection force. Cheers to that.’

Guan Shan shifts. ‘The two attempts she mentioned—’

‘I was staying at a hotel in Shanghai. The bellboy had a knife. _Not_ very hospitable.’

‘Were you hurt?’

Jian Yi rolls his eyes. ‘I’m not a rookie.’ He lifts the glass again, swallows the dregs, and smacks his lips. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

Guan Shan isn’t going to touch that. ‘The second attempt?’ he prompts.

Jian Yi grimaces. ‘Car crash—no survivors. Lucky me. They got me going through the Xiaoyue Tunnel on my way home from work. Honestly, I thought a bomb had gone off. All the lights—the sound of metal—Yeesh. Now I know what hell sounds like. Took three hours to cut me out the fucking car.’

Jian Yi shudders, and it’s not all comical pretence. He’s drunk the bottle three-quarters dry, and there’s a noticeable flush to the sharp edge of his cheeks. Guan Shan isn’t going to stop him. It takes the edge off, dulls the panic like water on a fire but leaves the smoke in his lungs.

Guan Shan doesn’t linger long on the image Jian Yi paints him, pinches himself away from the panic. No more booze or cigarettes tonight. The drive home will be a long one.

‘Were you always alone?’ Guan Shan asks next.

‘The first time, yeah. It was a business trip. But my driver was with me in the car. Xiao Zhan. Thirty-seven. Two kids and a wife.’ Jian Yi sighs. ‘Look, I’ll get you all the reports. I’ve given my statements so many fucking times now and I’m not, uh, _buzzed_ about doing it again.’

Guan Shan nods. ‘I didn’t want to talk about this over the phone,’ he says, feeling like he owes some kind of explanation for his presence. The reunion is a bitter one: Jian Yi’s almost-death the catalyst that brings them back together.

‘No, I understood,’ Jian Yi says. ‘It’s fine. You sure picked the night for it.’ He blows out a shaky breath. ‘Sorry. Long day. Spent the whole flight thinking the plane was about to go down any second.’ He laughs nervously, swipes back a few stray hairs from his face. ‘Swear I nearly broke Xixi’s hand a couple times there. Whoops.’

_Xixi. _Guan Shan blinks. He shouldn’t be surprised. The gravelly voice in the background of Jian Yi’s phone calls, the persistent blue-eyed shadow at his side for at least half his life. The pair had been a union that no one had been shocked about in highschool except for the two of them—a union that, honestly, Guan Shan didn’t know would last. Jian Yi’s disappearance, the shaky reunion, their disparate dreams for the future that brought them close to shattering more than once. Guan Shan supposes, with a pang he doesn’t feel like acknowledging, that they’d just_ found a way_.

‘Just send me the files,’ Guan Shan says. ‘And that dossier. I’ve been tryna get my head around this shit with not much to go on.’

‘I promise you, it’s not that exciting. Just my usual mess.’

‘Yeah, well, look at you,’ says Guan Shan, unimpressed, recalling earlier days. ‘Runnin’ your mouth and sayin’ things you shouldn’t.’

A voice comes from behind them. ‘Sounds like someone else I know.’

Guan Shan knows who it is before he turns. The cadre of his voice, the intonation—his flesh prickles like a spider running across his skin, too quick to catch. He Tian’s dressed down this evening: jeans and a dark shirt, a tanned leather jacket. Relaxed, inoffensive, handsome. Guan Shan hates it.

‘The fuck are you doing here?' Guan Shan demands. He hadn’t heard the door.

He Tian glances at him, says nothing. Guan Shan turns his look on Jian Yi.

‘I texted him when I landed,’ Jian Yi says quickly, grinning. He straightens, walking behind the island, and heads towards He Tian with his arms outstretched. ‘Didn’t realise you were coming over so quickly.’ They embrace, a quick thing that doesn’t linger. Jian Yi’s hand smacks into He Tian’s shoulder with cheerful force, and he grins playfully as they pull away, a little drunk. ‘Aren't you just a knight in dark brooding armour?'

He Tian winks at him. 'Don't make your boyfriend jealous,' he says, then looks around. 'How long does it take him to unpack a fucking suitcase, anyway?'

'You know I don't pack light,’ Jian Yi reminds him. Lower, he says, ‘Don’t think I don’tt know why you’re here.’

He Tian lifts an eyebrow. Without a word, he turns to walk in Guan Shan’s direction, keeps eye contact for a second, and Guan Shan’s ready to move when He Tian just—walks past. Neroli, mint. Guan Shan clenches his fists.

'Hey, Zhengxi! ' He Tian shouts, stopping at the base of the staircase, hands framing his mouth like a megaphone. 'Get your ass down here!'

A few seconds pass, and then there's a quiet thumping sound above—footsteps. A familiar face peers out over the banister.

'Thought I heard your gravelly tones,' Zhengxi remarks, but there's a small smile there too. He makes his way down the stairs, two-step, and Guan Shan takes an unconscious step back as the man joins them in the kitchen, his body nearly flush against the window behind him.

The last time Guan Shan saw Zhan Zhengxi, he’d been sporting a buzz cut and the dress uniform of the PAP—blue shirt, black slacks, solemn eyes. His hair is longer now, the sides shaved, his dress casual, but his presence puts Guan Shan on edge.

‘Mo Guan Shan,’ Zhengxi says when he sees him, pausing, looking as uncertain as Guan Shan feels. ‘It’s been a while, hasn’t it?’

Guan Shan nods. ‘A few years,’ he says. His ears feel like they’re burning. His throat tightens. ‘You look—you look good.’

‘Jian Yi says you’re looking into the attacks. That’s decent of you.’ Zhengxi walks to Jian Yi’s side, slips an arm easy around his partner’s waist. Guan Shan’s eyes latch on the movement. ‘We closed the case on our end, but let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.’

Zhengxi looks at him for a moment more, and then Jian Yi says something that makes Zhengxi laugh, gaze drawn away. Guan Shan doesn’t hear it. He’s wondering what it must be like—the house, the partner, the certified plaque on the wall that makes everything official. The uniform and the badge and spine that always stands up straight. The family free of fuck-ups and prison sentences and mothers working two jobs and endless free passes.

He Tian’s snickering at something now too, helping himself to a glass from the cupboards—he knows where to find them—and pouring himself the last of the wine.

‘Not for me,’ Zhengxi says, when He Tian offers to grab another bottle. ‘I’m on call tonight.’

Jian Yi pouts, clinging to his boyfriend’s frame, all hands. ‘Three hours off a plane and you’re already on duty? This _sucks._’

‘You’re not the only one who got stuck in Seoul,’ Zhengxi reminds him. ‘I’ve run out of overtime. At least I work less than this guy.’ He nods in He Tian’s direction. ‘Do you ever catch a break?’

Guan Shan knows he doesn’t. Knows that no one responds to two middle-of-the-night security breaches unless they’re perpetually on call.

He Tian swallows a mouthful of wine, smiles smugly. ‘Don’t need one when I have the time management skills of a god.’

Zhengxi snorts. Jian Yi chortles into his shoulder. And Guan Shan just… watches.

It happened five minutes ago, switching like a faulty cable, colour turning to greyscale, and Guan Shan can see himself from the outside, pressed against the walls, watching the three of them with a twisted look that’s close to agony. The old band back together. There had been a thrill to it once, a nostalgic ache that seemed to fizzle out somewhere in his twenties, when their lives picked themselves up and moved on and his feet couldn’t get off the ground. When He Tian walked out the door and everything else seemed to walk out with him.

He remembers now why he doesn't draw people around him; why he doesn't have dinners or meet for drinks. While he speaks so much to his mother and calls Fan Li when he shouldn't. Why he works until he's ill and drinks until he's drunk then _too_ drunk. He's always been so goddamn out of place.

_How the fuck are they all just standing there? _he asks himself. Smiling at each other like Jian Yi doesn’t have a target on his head and He Tian isn’t tracking down a murderer and Zhengxi doesn’t strap a gun to his hip every time he walks out the door. Like their friendships aren’t built on the back of kidnappings and guns and knives in the schoolyard and empty shadows where their fathers should have been. And lies. So many fucking lies. _Doesn’t it matter to them?_

_Why would it?_ a voice answers him, buried in a place where it aches to linger too long. _Why would it matter to them when they can pick-up and remake themselves whenever the fuck they want?_

Guan Shan shuts it out. What the hell is wrong with him that it matters to him so much? What the hell is he doing here?

'Guan Shan?'

Guan Shan peels himself from his thoughts. He blinks. Colour bleeds back into its place. All three of them are staring at him.

'You okay, man?' Jian Yi asks. 'You look kind of—’

'Yeah,' Guan Shan says. 'Uh, I just remembered I'm meant to be meetin' a client in Tianjin. I gotta go—’

'What? It’s nearly eleven. You just got here.' Jian Yi glances through the glass walls of his house and laughs slightly. The snow has picked up again, bearable but dangerous. 'The weather's crazy out there right now. You can't drive back now.'

'I'm sorry,' Guan Shan says, walking towards the door. _Get out, get out, get out._ 'It's important.'

Zhengxi holds out a hand. 'Guan Shan—'

‘What about—’ Jian Yi starts.

'I'll call you,' Guan Shan says, cutting him off. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says again.

He Tian is watching him with an unreadable expression, and Guan Shan needs to get in his car and be 70 miles away from this house and that look. Without another word, he stumbles through the foyer and swears quietly to himself while the door sticks on opening, breath leaving his lungs like a torrent when it finally yanks open, closes, clicks and locks behind him.

Through the wood, he can hear Jian Yi’s voice raised from the foyer.

‘What the hell was _that_ all about?’

And He Tian, quieter: ‘You know what he's like. Just let him go.’

* * *

There's an email when he gets back, his apartment dark and poorly heated, the body empty except for a boilerplate confidentiality statement, the subject line consisting of two words: _As Promised_. Exhausted from the drive, throat sore from too many cigarettes, Guan Shan ignores the thought of sleep and instead boils the kettle for a pot of tea, kicks his feet onto the desk, and props his laptop on his thighs.

The email address is unfamiliar, and two attachments are enclosed: a decent-sized .pdf document and a video clip. Guan Shan runs the .pdf attachment through a virus checker before double-clicking. A thirty-four page wall of text opens up on the screen, a careful documentation of an incident that never even hit the news. Jian Yi’s fuck up.

Guan Shan skims the dossier — a too-long document of red tape, and he feels sorry for the poor bastard who had to put this together. It’s dry as neat vermouth, and Guan Shan pushes aside his tea for a cup of hot _mijiu _that warms his tongue and makes his hands tingle before settling down to read the rest.

It’s this, he knows, or a head full of Jian Yi. This or Zhan Zhengxi. This or He Tian. This or a head full of _should have_’s and _could have’_s and memories that should have expired creeping around like wisteria. And he can’t have that.

He sits at his desk until his eyes are sore and the clock on his stove gleams at him like a red traffic light: 2:53am. Bundled in two jumpers and a scarf that covers his mouth between sips of _mijiu_, a bowl of stew gone cold beside his laptop, Guan Shan opens the video file: _CPC_JIANY_OFFICIALSENSITIVE_PERSONAL04138_27082029.mp4._

Guan Shan jumps when Jian Yi’s voice rings out immediately through the speakers.

‘—working well with President Xi Jinping’s Beautiful China vision,’ he’s saying, reading off the screen of his laptop. ‘Groups are doing well working with the Volunteers Association and local universities to promote ecological welfare. There will be an awards ceremony next year in advance of the May Fourth Movement to give recognition to green initiatives and start-ups. Also to universities, local charities, and groups within the CYL, which is where we come in. As for prizes, let’s see…’

Guan Shan sits up in his chair. The video has opened on a boardroom view, three men and two women seated around a glass table, the room around them old and touched with marks of imperialism. Jian Yi’s the youngest in the room, long hair held back in a bun, scrolling through a document on his laptop. The others are middle-aged and greying, fanning themselves with papers and manila folders against the sticky heat of mid-summer, shirt sleeves rolled up. Guan Shan doesn’t recognise them, but their names must be in the dossier.

He pulls up the document on his laptop while the video continues to play, and his eyes latch on a block of text in the first few pages.

**Incident:** Communist Youth League (CYL) Meeting of Xicheng District, Beijing

**Venue:** Qingzhen Hall in Zhongnanhai, Imperial City, Dongcheng, Beijing, China, 100886

**Date:** Monday 27 August 2029 at 9am to 11am

**Participants:** Jian Yi (CYL First Secretary of Beijing; Acting Chair), Wu Luping (CYL Young Pioneers Secretary of Beijing), Zhou Qing Lin (CYL PR and Marketing Representative of Beijing), Cheng Li (CYL Chief Financial Officer of Beijing), Fong Yao (China Young Volunteers Association Representative)

**Absentees: **Shi Mei Liang (CYL HR and Operations Manager of Beijing)

A quick search online for the present members prompts few results, and Guan Shan clicks back to the video when Jian Yi continues speaking.

‘Okay, here we are. Prizes will be mostly monetary with the intent to fund ecological projects, initiatives, and/or equipment. Efforts will be judged on the basis of involvement since 2019.’

‘Efforts in what respect?’ one of the other men asks, nudging a set of wire-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose. ‘I don’t remember any targets or frameworks being set in place for this.’

One of the women—_Wu Luping? _Guan Shan guesses—clears her throat.

‘President Xi’s development plan focused on reducing plastics,’ she says, voice slightly nasal. ‘Clean travel, emission reduction, and so on. Waste management, food waste reduction. That sort of thing.’

‘I’m aware of the plan, Luping,’ the man replies curtly. ‘But how have groups been quantifying their achievements?’

‘Perhaps you didn’t get a chance to read it, Cheng Li,’ she says, equally as terse, ‘but I worked with the Environmental Sciences department at Peking University and put out a report to the Central Committee in May.’ The committee waits while she picks up a worn-looking satchel from the floor and drops it in her lap. She tugs out a spiral-bound document a few inches thick and slides it across the table. ‘There’ve been annual competitions on a local level to encourage innovation within the household and small communities. Villages, towns, small city districts, and so on. Groups that have shown the most initiative—’

‘Is this nation-wide?’ Cheng Li interrupts. ‘There’s an immediate bias here. Rural kids won’t have a chance against the city ones.’

‘It’s not a test of resources,’ Wu Luping informs him. ‘It’s about initiative.’

‘It’s _always_ about resources,’ Cheng Li says acridly. ‘Some of these CYL kids are old enough to be working on their doctorates on tech campuses.’ He scoffs, flicks his fingers. ‘First place to the Nanjing biochemistry and environmental sciences graduate. Remarkable.’

Jian Yi leans forward, nudges his laptop to one side. His pen taps out a metronome on the desk.

He asks, ‘Are you suggesting we ask the Secretary for the competition to be divided between urban and rural CYL groups?’

Guan Shan realises what Jian Yi’s saying. _Are you asking for segregation based on affluence? _Based on the brief pauses that coats the room in the video, the rest of the committee does too.

‘Fairness isn’t a crime,’ another man remarks blandly. Fong Yao?

‘Neither is open opportunity,’ Jian Yi points out.

Cheng Li hesitates. He takes off his glasses, rests them on the table.

‘Children are already marked by their _hukou_. Not to mention the Social Credit System. A division gives all of them a chance at this within their own means. It wouldn’t be anything new.’

‘Huh,’ Jian Yi says. ‘Spoken like a real populist.’

Cheng Li’s face sours at the remark.

‘I’m sure you can’t understand the sentiment,’ Cheng Li says, ‘but I’m a little tired of elitists reaping every reward we have to offer them.’

Jian Yi leans forward in his seat. Guan Shan stiffens while he watches.

‘You’re making some interesting assumptions, Cheng Li,’ Jian Yi says. ‘I’m pretty tired of pitting urban against rural, rich against poor. But you don’t see me talking about my resentments. You’re in Beijing, Cheng Li. You’re not _biaxing _anymore.’

‘People don’t forget where other people came from, _Princeling_.’

Jian Yi laughs, a single, flat sound, and then puts his pen down.

‘Come on, Cheng Li,’ he says. ‘At least have some tact.’

‘What are you, twenty-seven? You’re still old enough to be a member.’ Cheng Li sneers. ‘Go put on your uniform.’

‘I’m wearing it,’ Jian Yi says coldly. Guan Shan’s struck with a realisation he hadn’t made earlier that night. Everyone was softer in their own home, Jian Yi even more so when his pale skin was flushed with wine. But now: Jian Yi is nothing like the boy Guan Shan went to school with. The person in the video is the one that disappeared for a few years; the one whose father worked outside any law or any office; the one who went through high school and university knowing he’d be spending a life looking over his shoulder unless he started to make others look over theirs. ‘At least one of us is young enough to think like the kids we’re trying to represent.’

‘Represent?’ Cheng Li retorts.

‘Cheng Li—’ Wu Luping starts.

Cheng Li cuts her off. ‘We don’t represent them. We _coordinate_ them.’

Jian Yi’s eyebrows rise. His lips have pressed into a thin line. ‘That’s a funny way of saying control.’

‘Don’t be facetious,’ Cheng Li gripes. ‘What is it that _you’re_ trying to say, Jian Yi? You’re the chair. Please. _Speak freely_.’

‘Gentlemen, this meeting is getting out of hand—’ Wu Luping starts, getting to her feet.

Jian Yi’s fist thumps in to the table.

_‘Sit down,’ _he snaps. Glass shakes and crackles through the room. Jian Yi’s pen rolls across the desk and clatters noisily to the floor. ‘No one leaves this room until I adjourn this meeting.’

Silently, Wu Luping sits. She has her papers gathered to her chest.

‘Listen to me very carefully,’ says Jian Yi, looking around the room. ‘I don’t care where any of you are from. None of you should either. I don’t care about the goddamn _hukou_, and I don’t want it brought up again. Honestly, I don’t think it should exist. We are not a grassroots team in here, understood? We’re not here to remind our youth of where they came from, or whether they can access public services in this city. We’re not here to remind them where they have their lineage and who their fucking parents are. Their identity is CYL and that’s all they need to know.’

This time, no one nods. No one says a thing. Cheng Li clears his throat.

‘And how far does that go, Jian Yi?’ he murmurs. ‘How far would you go to erase it?’

_Don’t say anything, _Guan Shan thinks, hand rubbing at his temples. _Don’t fucking say anything. _

But Jian Yi could never back down from a fight. He and Guan Shan had that in common—they all did. Some insatiable need to push and keep pushing until they drew blood. Jian Yi can’t have seen that he was already bleeding or he wouldn’t open his mouth.

On the video, Jian Yi collects himself.

‘I’ll do what I have to,’ he says. ‘I always have.’

The video ends; Guan Shan’s screen goes dark.

The dossier makes sense now, a whole inquiry launched because of some petty argument between committee members with chips on their shoulders. A back-and-forth investigation to protect the interests of the CPC. Was Jian Yi making reference to national identity erasure? (_No. Of course I wasn’t._) Was Jian Yi dismissing the importance of national civilian registration? (_Not in that way, no._) In what way, then? (_In the way that it determines someone’s caste._) Are you implying that the Republic of China operates an immovable caste system? (_[Expletive redacted.] That’s not—No. No, I’m not._)

Guan Shan understands. It’s funny, almost. Subtext and implication on record—none of it fact. None of it a crime. A career threatened by a loose tongue and prickly heat on the back of the neck. The conversation was classist, but Cheng Li was picking a fight with the wrong man if he was looking for someone to blame about his childhood poverty. He Tian, maybe, would have been a better one. But had it been He Tian, there would be no inquiry.

Given the power of Jian Yi’s father, Guan Shan’s surprised there even was one.

_Maybe his father was the difference between losing his job and keeping it._

Guan Shan doesn’t know. It’s 4am, and he knows this: the comments in that meeting weren’t worth his death. They were barely worth an investigation. Where was the fraud, the cronyism, the nepotism? Where was the embezzlement of government funds and the scandal between a kid from the CYL and a politician? It’s weak, and Guan Shan can’t put the fragments of it together.

Outside, the snow has come to a stop again, and he can hear birds down on the streets chirping at the quiet advent of dawn. It lulls him; his fingers come to a stop. His eyelids, heavy and strained, start to pull down, and he thinks about closing them—just for a second. Just a second…

He falls asleep at his desk. When he wakes, blue sky is jutting through the blinds over his window, and the snow has been pushed into oversized mounds through the city, glistening a piercing white under a cold sun. Snow ploughs drudge through the streets, and the walls in Guan Shan’s building groan as hot water pushes its way through the pipes.

Guan Shan winces as he unfolds from his slouch, picking a sticky-note off his cheek. His laptop died a few hours ago, and the mug of _mijiu_ on his desk has gone cold. He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his palms, and reaches numbly for his phone.

A couple missed calls (his mother, Feng Li, Jian Yi's mother), three texts (unknown).

Guan Shan flicks to the messages.

**[01:57:10] Unknown:  
**Are you back?

Three words, and they make him grimace, clenching with heartache. He pictures a leather jacket, hands on the steering wheel, teeth turned red in the lights. Guan Shan knows who it is. He knows he doesn’t have any right to ask.

**[02:13:38] Unknown:  
**Let me know when you’re home.

**[03:40:07] Unknown:  
**You didn't need to leave.

_Neither did you_, Guan Shan starts to type out—and stops himself. A little earlier, a little more liquor, he might have pressed send. Just because. But daylight is filtering through the blinds and it brings a sharp clarity with it that refuses to let him yield.

Yes. Yes, he did. By the end, one of them had to. Could only pretend that things were salvageable for so long, catching at the threads like fine, warm sand between their fingertips. A lesson he learnt well a while ago, a burst of sense he has to grapple for: he deletes the messages, turns off his phone, and gets ready for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please consider leaving a kudos if you enjoyed this chapter!**
> 
> Thank you to Damien for proofreading this for me, and thank you to the following lovely souls for supporting me with my work: Amy, Tracey, Damien, Alex, and Vicky!
> 
> If you would like to support me and/or would like a fic written for you, please check out my [Tumblr!](http://agapaic.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

The news comes in two days later, a week after the night in Hebin Park—the murder, three bullet wounds, a man at the window. It hits in the middle of the night, the video streamed from a neighbour’s phone as paramedics and EMTs roll the body out on a gurney. She’s draped in a white sheet, no bullet wounds in sight. No signs of struggle. Nothing that would dispute the capitalised headline:

FEMALE POLITICIAN, 32, FOUND DEAD IN HEBIN APARTMENT FROM SUICIDE, REPORTS SAY

Guan Shan glances at the clock on his bedside while the video rolls, red and blue flashing up at him from his phone screen, hitting the blinds over his window like disco lights. 5.47am. He’s had four hours of sleep, three hours of intermittent wakefulness, two benzos ready and waiting on his bedside table—but four should be enough for now. The hospital will be busy in a few hours, morning patients filling up the ER, shift workers changing hands. Guan Shan has stopped waiting for opportunities to come at him, and he knows the pathologist should be there for another few hours yet.

He showers quickly, winces at the cold water that settles the red around his eyes, and pulls on a pair of jeans, grey henley, sweater, and his dad’s old waxed jacket. The roads are still quiet at this time of morning, trickling with commuters starting the journey north to Beijing for an early shift. Guan Shan gets to the hospital by 6.30am, flashes a badge at security, segues past occupied hospital beds, an oncology ward slowly coming to life as the sun flashes gold through the tilted blinds, and presses himself into the staff elevator behind a bunch of medics who nod to each other, smile behind disposable masks, doze against the chrome wall of the elevator.

No one looks at him. A nurse in scrubs flips through unread messages on his phone (_Shift finishing up. Be home soon._); a doctor squints at an X-ray pinned to a clipboard, mutters under her breath while she flips through test reports. And then the elevator dings, the doors slide open, the medics all step out, and Guan Shan rides the elevator down to the basement alone.

He wanders the halls, fluorescent lights humming overhead, footsteps echoing down the hallways, rounds the corner to the morgue. Wang Xi is at his desk when Guan Shan pushes the doors open, screen lights reflected in his glasses, a three-day-old shadow filling in his jawline, a cup of matcha bubble tea half-empty at his desk.

Guan Shan clears his throat, and Wang Xi startles.

‘_Gai si_!’ Wang Xi cries, shooting upright in his chair. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

Guan Shan raises his eyebrows. ‘You’re in the right place for it,’ he says.

Wang Xi scowls at him. ‘Don’t make jokes like that, Mr Mo. It’s unsavoury.’

‘Gotta find the humour somewhere here, haven’t you?’

‘You don’t seem like the kind of man to make many jokes,’ Wang Xi replies, scrutinising him. ‘How did you _get _down here? This area is for hospital staff and families of the deceased. You can’t just—walk in.’

Guan Shan only shrugs. He jerks his chin towards Wang Xi’s computer. ‘You busy right now?’

Wang Xi glances at his computer screen, lifts a clipboard resting on the keyboard to hold against his chest. He’s a small man, a little stocky, skin flushed against the white cotton of his coat. ‘If you’re asking for a favour, then yes. I am. _Very_ busy.’

Dissatisfaction pulls Guan Shan’s eyebrows down, hardens his expression. He didn’t want to have to make this difficult. He clears scattered pens, rubber bands and bulldog clips with a swipe of his hand, clears just enough space for him to perch on the edge of the desk.

Guan Shan looks Wang Xi in the eye, waits for the man’s knuckles to whiten around the clipboard clutched to his chest.

‘You owe me a favour, Wang Xi,’ Guan Shan reminds him. ‘I don’t handle cases for free. You knew that before you came to me.’

Wang Xi’s face darkens, blood rushing to his face, tips of his ears purplish. ‘That was—’ He clenches his jaw, lowers his voice. ‘That was three _years_ ago, Mr Mo.’

‘Yeah,’ says Guan Shan. ‘It was. And now I’ve come to collect.’

‘You knew I would be on-shift tonight,’ Wang Xi growls.

Guan Shan sucks on his teeth. ‘It would be pretty fuckin’ stupid of me to lose track of what I’m owed, Wang Xi.’ He shrugs. ‘If you want, I can go back to your wife and tell her everythin’. Three years later and I’m sure she’s forgotten all about it by now. Would be a shame to bring it back up again.’

Wang Xi squeezes his eyes shut, and Guan Shan waits for him to make his decision. He’d put his credibility on the line for Wang Xi—got the girl he’d been fucking on a train southbound with a new phone and enough money stashed in an envelope to encourage her never to come back to Tianjin again.

‘I’ve got _kids_, Mr Mo,’ Wang Xi had pleaded, six months left of study, five years’ deep in student debt, a junior pathologist offer waiting for him at the end of it. ‘This will ruin my family.’

And Guan Shan had cursed at himself the whole time; he needed to stop feeling sorry for people. When had anyone answered his cries for a second chance? For a fuck-up do-over?

Eventually, defeated, Wang Xi asks, ‘What is it that you want?’

Guan Shan slips his phone from his pocket and taps on his browser. The news article slides open on his phone, and Guan Shan turns it to face the pathologist.

‘This woman. It says her body was brought here. Maybe—’ Guan Shan counts the time passed on his fingers. ‘—three hours ago?’ He shakes the phone. ‘Is that true? Is she here?’

Wang Xi is staring at the phone screen, and Guan Shan shoves it back into his pocket, waiting. Wang Xi swallows, wets his lips, scratches at his wrist. His breathing has quickened, and he looks past Guan Shan like he’s measuring his exit points. It’s cool down here, but sweat beads on his upper lip.

‘You can’t—I can’t show you that one,’ Wang Xi says finally. ‘Pick another.’

‘Uh,’ says Guan Shan. ‘No, that’s not how this works, Wang Xi. Pretty sure another cadaver isn’t gonna answer my questions.’

‘What—what kind of questions?’

Guan Shan breathes out slowly. He’d thought this would be easier. He takes a step forward.

‘Show me the fuckin’ body, Wang Xi. I’m really not in the mood to wake your wife up.’

‘Mr Mo—’ Wang Xi starts, eyes tight at the corners.

‘You’ve got one minute, Wang Xi. I’m not leavin’ ‘til I get what I came for.’

Wang Xi opens his mouth and then—deflates. His head drops. He knows, between them, that Guan Shan is the honest one. He’ll hold his word. And if Wang Xi won’t help him, then Guan Shan will have to help himself.

‘Fine,’ he mutters. He heads back to his desk, presses a few keys to lock down the computer, and switches off the monitor. He looks at Guan Shan, grim. ‘Follow me.’

* * *

It’s even colder inside, steel autopsy tables holding no warmth, equipment lying neat and sterilised on metal trays. Wang Xi has another office inside, shared with the rest of the pathology team and separated from the autopsy room by a glass wall. It’s an effective lab, surfaces covered with dormant computers, microscopes, petri dishes, and swab kits. Guan Shan slides his gaze across the forceps and saws, and waits as Wang Xi grabs a folder from a filing cabinet and takes him back into the autopsy room, freezers lining the walls, Guan Shan’s shapeless reflection moving along with him.

Wang Xi motions to him, stopping beside one of the drawers. He wraps his fingers around the handle, and hesitates.

‘Her family—they haven’t seen her yet,’ he says quietly, like that’s supposed to make a difference. Guan Shan imagines himself lying on the autopsy table, scars cutting out a ‘Y’ shape from pelvis to shoulder bones, veering off at his sternum like an intersection of baseball stitches. What, he thinks, would his mother want more? To get a front row ticket with ‘suicide’ floating in her head, or know that someone investigating his possible homicide got first bragging rights. Guan Shan doesn’t have to wonder long.

He glances at Weng Xi. ‘I don’t think she’s going to mind.’

Wang Xi wrinkles his nose. ‘Be a little more respectful, please.’

‘I’m bein’ practical,’ Guan Shan says, adding: ‘I thought that was your job.’ Before Wang Xi can protest, Guan Shan flicks his fingers at him. ‘Come on. Your shift ends soon.’

Wang Xi flashes him a spiteful glance that’s made up of only half-fear. _How do you know? _it says, quickly quashed as he turns to face the freezer—and tugs.

There’s no white sheet—nothing to prepare him. No three-stage process that Guan Shan can build himself up for. Not that he needs to, but it doesn’t stop him from biting down on his tongue until his saliva turns coppery.

Wang Xi hits the file against Guan Shan’s chest. ‘Here,’ he says sourly. ‘Ten minutes. Knock yourself out.’

Guan Shan waits until the pathologist leaves to open the file, glancing up in short bursts at the body lying cold and bare in front of him—pockmarked with extracted bullets, a ring of purple around her throat, lips cracked and blue—and casts his gaze over the contents.

He doesn’t understand most of it—bloodwork analysis and reports, medical terms written in a predictably unintelligible scrawl—but he knows enough. He knows that Wang Xi’s signature is on the bottom of the file, and he knows that the cause of death has been noted as suicide (fractured larynx, loss of oxygen to the brain, consistent marking around the throat from a rope). But he also knows her body is a week old, rigor mortis come and gone, and that no bullet wounds ever pointed to suicide.

Guan Shan briskly photographs the report with his phone, snaps the file shut, and stares at Fan Xuemei’s body with grim understanding.

_Let me know when you’ve put the dots together._

How long has He Tian been on the case? Was this why he came back? An investigation into the very same thing Guan Shan is being paid to uncover? If the government is sanctioning the deaths, who’s sanctioning He Tian and his team to uncover them?

Guan Shan grimaces. No fucking wonder He Tian told him to stay out of it—the moment he caught a glimpse of Fan Xuemei’s murderer, he put a nation-wide bounty on his own head, a thorned crown drawing blood from his own skin.

_Stay out of trouble. Please. _

Guan Shan hears He Tian’s voice in his head, rubs at his own temples. He thought he’d grown out of this—He Tian as his own personal consciousness, a plaguing whisper in his cerebral cortex that stings like a needle to his brain with every syllable. Ghost-like promises of _I’m not going anywhere_ and holy confessions of _I need to tell you something about your father_—and the cold absence of any fucking goodbye.

How frustrating He Tian must be finding this. Guan Shan walking all over the job like they’re puzzle pieces, cardboard snapping beneath his feet, death or danger imminent. How pleasing he must find it. The excuse to torment again, now that he’s ready. The excuse to come to his apartment and ask Jian Yi for his phone number.

Tethered again. Not asking Guan Shan how he likes the feeling of that rope.

Ten minutes go by, and Wang Xi walks back in with a blank gaze, head held high. Guan Shan waits until he’s put Fan Xuemei’s body away again, sealed up inside the walls, and then Guan Shan looks at him.

‘You lied, Wang Xi.’

Wang Xi reaches out for the file, but Guan Shan holds it back.

‘You didn’t do a toxicology report?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘No X-ray for the bullets? Who knows how much shrapnel she’s still got inside her.’

‘There weren’t any bullets,’ Wang Xi mutters. He reaches again—Guan Shan pulls back.

‘D’you want me to point them out for you?’ Guan Shan says, jerking a thumb at the freezer where Fan Xuemei’s body lies. ‘I’m no pathologist, but I’m pretty sure I could show ‘em to you.’

Wang Xi steps close, and when he snatches at the autopsy report again, Guan Shan lets him take it. His voice is a low warning. _‘There weren’t any bullets, Mr Mo.’_

Guan Shan shakes his head slowly. ‘That woman’s family thinks she killed herself.’

Wang Xi lifts his chin. ‘There was a note. She hanged herself.’

‘You’re a fuckin’ disgrace,’ Guan Shan snarls. ‘_Be more respectful?_’ he mocks, spitting Wang Xi’s words back at him. ‘That woman died a _week_ ago. You’re gonna do her the dishonour of lyin’ about her mutilations too? Who the hell is _payin’ _you?’

Wang Xi’s face is twisted with distaste. ‘I have children to feed and bills to pay. Don’t you dare tell me you’ve never done something to make sure you and your family stay alive.’

‘I’ve done a lot of things for other people,’ Guan Shan throws back, ‘and none of ‘em involved hurting someone else in the process.’ He scoffs. ‘Is that what you’re gonna tell the coroner when he asks for an inquest, huh? That you have _bills?_’

At this, Wang Xi goes quiet. He draws his gaze away. At first, Guan Shan thinks he’s been silenced by shame, but instead Wang Xi says, ‘There won’t be an inquest.’

Guan Shan stops himself short, brain ticking over. No inquest. Of course not. Why would the one government official overseeing inquests into suspicious deaths demand an inquest that looks into _this_?

_Fucking hell, _Guan Shan thinks tiredly. _I should’ve asked that woman for triple. _

‘I get it,’ he tells Wang Xi, calmer now. He needs to get out of here—it all should’ve been clear to him from the start. Wang Xi looks at him cautiously. ‘You’ve been real fuckin’ helpful.’

‘Wait,’ Wang Xi says, calling out as Guan Shan starts to move towards the exit. ‘What are you going to do? You can’t tell my wife.’

Guan Shan pauses, lip curling. ‘Don’t worry, Wang Xi. We’re done. No more favours.’

He shakes his head as he leaves, pushing the doors open to the hallway and heading towards the elevator. Once again, he finds himself needing to see the one person he never wanted to see again.

* * *

_i get it now, _he texts to the unknown number sitting in his phone when he’s home. Since going to Jian Yi’s, he’s had two more messages, self-amused and droll, moved to archive but not deleted. _i put the pieces together._

He Tian’s reply comes in seconds, and Guan Shan remembers what Zhengxi had said—always working, never sleeping. A lifestyle of permanent self-punishment. For what?

_I’m on my way_, his message reads._ We should talk._

Guan Shan gets fifteen minutes to tidy up his apartment; he puts away case files, throws out trash and recycling, empties the ashtrays on his desk, bedside, coffee table. He sweeps, pushes open the windows, lights a joss stick, wipes down the kitchen counters and boils the kettle. A pot of tea is steeping by the time He Tian arrives and sets himself down in the chair across from Guan Shan’s desk. Guan Shan pours two cups.

‘Were you busy?’ Guan Shan asks, setting He Tian’s cup down in front of him, marking the clean suit. The scarred knuckles. The fleck of blood on He Tian’s starched shirt.

‘It can wait,’ He Tian says. ‘My partner’s dealing with it.’ He takes a sip, winces—too hot. He sets the cup back down for it to cool and crosses one leg over the other, ankle on his thigh. ‘Go on, then. What was your grand revelation?’

Guan Shan says, ‘Fan Xuemei.’

He Tian looks at him, measuring, and then he wipes a hand over his mouth. He sighs.

‘Yeah.’

A private victory lights Guan Shan up from the inside, a champagne fizz against his ribs.

‘I went to see her body,’ he tells He Tian.

He Tian blinks in surprise. ‘How did you manage _that_?’

‘Someone owed me a favour. An old client.’

He Tian huffs a laugh of disbelief, but waves his hand. _Continue._

‘She’s got bullet wounds, signs of a struggle. Skull fracture, maybe from hittin’ the ground. The pathologist who looked at her marked it down as a suicide. Said there was a _note. _He and the coroner got bought out by someone.’ Guan Shan picks up his cup of tea, lets the warmth seep into his palms. ‘Figured you could fill me in on that part.’

He Tian’s foot bobs across his knee. Impatience, nervousness—no. Indecision. He’s looking at Guan Shan like he’s trying to figure out just how far down the rabbit hole he can bring him. Where’s the brink of no return? Where’s the precipice they’ll teeter over until they fall and fall and fall? When has gravity ever been a problem for them before?

Another sip of tea.

‘We weren’t hired to investigate,’ He Tian says eventually. ‘We were hired to take him out. Hitman versus hitman.’

‘But you weren’t—’

‘Semantics,’ He Tian says, shaking his head. ‘Trained killer. Soldier. Special Forces. Whatever you want to call me, you know it’s true.’

Guan Shan does.

‘I got the call a couple months back,’ He Tian continues. ‘The trail had been caught, pieces put together, but we didn’t know a thing about this guy. No name. No _hukou._ No nothing. The only database entry he has on any system is the one we’ve created.’ His look is pointed. ‘The one that you tried to access. He’s a ghost, Guan Shan. A dangerous one.’

‘You know more now?’ Guan Shan asks.

‘We know more,’ He Tian starts, bobbing his head from side to side. ‘More about his victims. More about who might be next. We don’t know anything about him, though. He’s too clean—there’s a reason he was chosen. He’s skilled, and he’s well-hidden. Ex-army, probably. An early discharge. Picked up by someone who recognised what was in him. It’s conjecture, but I’ve seen men like this before.’ _I am one, _is what he doesn’t say. ‘It would help if we knew more about whose orders he was following, but that’s not our MO. Track and kill. That’s all I’ve been told.’

‘Your boss—your superiors. You think _they _know whose orders this guy’s followin’?’

He Tian lifts a shoulder. ‘I don’t know. Maybe they do; maybe they don’t. Until now, I haven’t bothered finding out.’

_Until now_. Guan Shan pauses on deciphering it—until he came into the picture? Until Jian Yi did? Until—

‘Once you uploaded that photo, things changed. We could get some facial recognition searches up and running, stop running like dogs all over the east coast. It didn’t change much—he was gone before we ever got close and cleaned up too well. But he knows that someone’s on his trail.’

_Wait. _Guan Shan goes still. ‘All over the east coast,’ he echoes carefully.

He Tian arches an eyebrow. ‘No one who wants a life in politics is going too far west. All the cases we’ve seen so far have been this side of the country. What about it?’

_He came back to Tianjin because of the murder in Hebin Park. Not because he wanted to. Because the job pulled him here._

Guan Shan sucks in a breath. ‘So how long are you gonna be around Tianjin for?’

He Tian hesitates. ‘Only until there’s another case to look at,’ he says, looking at Guan Shan strangely. ‘Right now our post-mortem evidence is our best shot. We’ve put surveillance on possible victims, but we can’t do more than that or there’ll be a panic. If surveillance tells us we need to get to Shanghai, we go. If they say Guangzhou, we go. It’s usually too late. The signs aren’t there until they’re dead.’

Brain fog stints Guan Shan from hearing too much—He Tian’s voice warbled like words above water. Guan Shan wants to laugh, maybe cry, wants to light a cigarette just to put it out in his skin.

It boils down to this: for the past week he’s wanted nothing more than for He Tian to fuck off to wherever he’s been for the past five years. Leave without a goodbye, because that’s what he’s good at. Leave and never come back and let Guan Shan live in the blissful ignorance that the last few days were a mistake, wouldn’t happen again, and he could go back to how it was before.

It boils down to this: the last few minutes leave him with a breathlessness like being punch drunk and winded, a fist that won’t stop swinging. A week is all it took. Relying on He Tian with an age-old familiarity, a sage knowledge that He Tian would always be there.

He can’t do this again. He can’t be left on his own again.

‘You should go,’ Guan Shan says.

He Tian’s expression drops, just for a second, and then he grins. ‘Invite me for tea then kick me out?’ he says. ‘High and dry, Mo Guan Shan. You sure know how to do it.’

Guan Shan works his jaw. ‘I meant—I think I might have a lead.’

In a second, it’s all business. The smile is wiped from He Tian’s face, replaced by a fierceness that flashes up close as he leans forward. His hands are locked tightly between his knees.

‘How?’ he demands.

‘I’ll tell you when I know for sure.’

He Tian’s expression twists. ‘Guan Shan—’

And Guan Shan holds a hand up, silencing him. He pours them both another cup of tea.

‘You’ve got your job, and I’m doin’ mine.’

He Tian shakes his head. ‘You’re a son of a bitch,’ he says, but reaches for his cup anyway. ‘You know that right?’

Numbly: ‘I know.’

He Tian snorts. He drinks the rest of his tea, and then gets to his feet. Despite the cold, he keeps his jacket off, folding it over his forearm.

At the door, he says, ‘Keep me updated, Guan Shan. We should meet again. What are you doing Saturday?’

‘Going home. It’s New Year’s.’

It takes He Tian a second, and he blinks fast. ‘That’s this weekend?’ he asks, startled. ‘Fuck…’

_You work too hard if you’re forgetting that, _Guan Shan almost says.

‘You haven’t seen the decorations everywhere?’ he asks instead. ‘Half the city’s gone back to their _laojia. _Pretty unobservant of you.’

‘Work,’ is all He Tian says, spreading his hands wide. Bitterly, he adds, ‘I’m supposed to be going back too. How are you getting there?’

‘Train,’ Guan Shan says.

‘Bullet train?’

‘You think I’ve got that money to throw around?’ Guan Shan wrinkles his nose. ‘Slow train. How were you plannin’ on gettin’ there? Private jet?’

‘I thought about driving. Making a trip of it.’ He Tian scratches his jaw. ‘He Cheng’s got the jet for the week.’

Guan Shan swears under his breath. _Fuckers… _

‘You could come with me,’ He Tian says. ‘I’ll cover everything.’

Guan Shan stares at him. ‘That’s a slower journey. You know that, right?’

‘Twenty-seven hours on a train—or a drive with an overnight stop-off. We can stop for food, stretch our legs. Road trip.’

_What? _

Guan Shan can’t figure it out.

‘You seriously fuckin’ think I want to spend two days in a car with you?’

Guan Shan sees it too well—hands catching over the radio dials, He Tian laughing over lunch, music they both know the lyrics to, stolen glances in the rearview mirror. Arguing over what to eat, where to stay, what road to take. Getting out the car, engine still running, waiting for the next train with his bags and He Tian watching him from the station’s parking lot. Small heartaches like pinched skin. A whole pack of cigarettes. Memories dug up like he’s robbing a grave.

‘I don’t know,’ He Tian says. ‘Do you?’

Guan Shan just shakes his head. _No, _is what he should be saying. _No fucking way. Not again._

What comes out of his mouth instead is, ‘You should go. I’ll be in touch.’

* * *

Fan Xuemei’s mother lives in a two-bed apartment in Heping. It sits above the Anshan station and the windows shake every three minutes. There are photo frames crowding the TV stand and the bookcase that divides the kitchen and living area, shadowed by lilies that sit on the coffee table, and chrysanthemums on kitchen counters and side tables. Mrs Li’s youngest daughter, Fan Ximei, is a florist.

An infomercial plays in silence on the TV with the subtitles on. They’re selling a skin serum kit for ¥350 when Mrs Li leads Guan Shan into the living area, and he raises his eyebrows at it while he pockets his police badge.

‘It’s a distraction,’ Mrs Li tells him shakily as they sit, Guan Shan taking the armchair, Mrs Li and Fan Ximei on the sofa opposite. A tassled lamp crowds over the sofa and brushes against Mrs Li’s shoulder.

‘I understand,’ Guan Shan says easily. ‘You’re dealin’ with a lot right now.’

Fan Ximei pulls a face and pours tea into three cups. She can’t be much younger than her sister—a softer face, longer hair, but the same features. A strong nose, small eyes like her mother, a mouth that pulls down at the corners in perpetual dissatisfaction.

‘I’m sorry for botherin’ you both like this,’ Guan Shan starts.

Fan Xuemei’s mother shakes her head. ‘They said it was a suicide—I already told the police everything—’

‘I’m just followin’ up. Routine. Makin’ sure we’ve covered everythin’.’

‘What—I mean, what more is there to cover, officer?’ she asks, spreading her hands wide. They shake. ‘My daughter is dead. She hung herself.’

Guan Shan shifts. ‘And you believe that?’

‘I—_What?_’

‘You believe she had a good reason to do that?’ Guan Shan glances at his notebook. ‘The note that she left… Can you tell me more about it?’

‘Haven’t you read it? The officers—they took it. It was evidence.’

_Evidence for an incident they’re not going to investigate._

‘I have,’ Guan Shan concedes carefully. He marks the look on her face, the smudge of lipstick on her teeth, a waste bin full of used tissues. ‘Mrs Li, I know this is confusing for you. Lots of policies and procedures. My job’s to make sure Fan Xuemei’s death is understood. By her family, by the justice system. The note she wrote—how do you understand it?’

Mrs Li looks at her daughter, rubs a hand against her chest. Heartache. A hundred days of this to go. Guan Shan pours her another cup of tea.

‘I thought she was okay,’ Mrs Li whispers. ‘Things were difficult at work. And then the divorce… I’ve had the spare room made up for her for a month. You can imagine the shame—a thirty-two-year-old woman moving back in with her mother.’

‘What happened with her work?’

‘She never went into detail. Said something about a—a tribunal, I think she said? I don’t know. She’s always stressed. Those government jobs don’t pay well.’ Mrs Li gestures towards him. ‘You would know.’

Guan Shan presses his lips into a hard smile. ‘I would,’ he says dully, and clears his throat. ‘Is that why she moved back home? Because of work?’

Fan Ximei leans forward. ‘She already told—’

‘Her divorce was unsavoury,’ her mother interrupts. ‘The house was in his name. She has—_had _the money to get her own apartment, but there was so much else going on, it just… I was worried.’

‘It was her decision to move back home?’ Guan Shan asks.

‘It was mine,’ she replies. ‘She was so down. So… not herself.’

‘Enough to consider—?’

‘Okay.’ Fan Xuemei’s sister gets to her feet, the soft blue fabric of her dress falling to her knees, ruffles at the shoulders and cuffs of her wrists. ‘I think that’s enough. We’ve been through a lot today. My mother needs rest.’

Mrs Li waves her off. ‘I’m _fine, _Ximei—’

‘You’re not, Mom.’ Ximei gives Guan Shan a pointed look. ‘Whatever questions he has, he can come back tomorrow. Or next week. We have things to do. We have to go to the hospital. Make arrangements for her funeral.’ She looks Guan Shan straight in the eye. ‘I’ll show you out, sir.’

Her mother doesn’t resist anymore, and Guan Shan isn’t going to push it. He’s been here before, has run this scene again and again: twenty different homes, twenty different mothers and wives and husbands and sons sitting where Mrs Li is now. He weighs up their confusion, their anger. Throws out the questions and sees what comes back like breaking open a money box and hoping for bills instead of coins.

So far, it’s telling, but he’s hit the wall.

Ximei is watching him from the doorway, and he gets to his feet.

‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Li,’ Guan Shan murmurs. ‘And I’m sorry. Again. I’ll be in touch.’

He heads out of the living area and towards the hallway. Ximei has a sour look on her face, moving towards the front door—and then she turns away. She grips the handle of the door opposite, and twists.

Inside, Guan Shan sees a made bed, white sheets, a woman’s suit hanging from the wardrobe. There’s a laptop on the desk, a view of the city through the window, the desk chair piled with clothes, freshly washed. The vase of an orchid, wilting, refracts light onto the bare walls.

Guan Shan hesitates. ‘I thought—’

‘Quiet,’ Ximei mutters. She opens the door wider. ‘Do you want answers or not?’

Guan Shan pauses, eyebrows raised, but he follows.

He stands beside the wardrobe, waiting, while Ximei perches on the end of the bed and runs her hand over the sheets. They bunch into a fist.

‘I know why you’re here,’ she starts, voice rough, ‘and I know you’re not with the police.’

Her words sit there, and Guan Shan shifts his weight side-to-side, considering.

‘Why am I here?’

‘Don’t insult me,’ Ximei says, teeth gritted. ‘I know this is about the tribunal. The fraud. You want the money. I don’t know where it is. The other officers were polite enough not to ask.’

Guan Shan shifts again. _Huh. _She’s sharper than he expected, but there’s usually one—a watchdog for the grieving, a cynic who knows how this works. The one who orders the flowers and talks to the lawyer and thanks the strangers at the wake and doesn’t cry until after the funeral, maybe not for weeks. Maybe not for months.

‘I didn’t know about that,’ he says. ‘But I think you should probably tell me.’

Ximei’s face goes blank. ‘Wait, you…’ Her lips part slightly, eyes tightening at the corners. ‘Who the hell _are _you?’

An easy question. Guan Shan tugs a spare card from his jacket pocket, a little worn-down at the edges. The woman takes it cautiously from between two fingers and flips it.

‘A _P.I._?’ she says, incredulous. ‘Who _hired _you?’

‘It’s a long story,’ Guan Shan says.

Her eyes dart between his face and the card. ‘This isn’t about the fraud.’

‘Right,’ he says. ‘This is about her murder.’

—

‘She had a busy work schedule. Never discussed what she did. I only knew about the tribunal because—I checked her emails. They were charging her for embezzlement. I thought—if she’d _killed _herself… It made sense why. It’s been happening a lot. Office hangings. Jumps. All the corruption finally getting rooted out. It made _sense._’

Fan Ximei puts her head in her hands. Guan Shan hears her curse under her breath.

‘Was she the kind of person to embezzle?’ he asks. ‘Were you surprised when you found out?’

She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what she was like.’

‘She was private,’ Guan Shan guesses.

‘She was a thirty-two-year-old politician,’ Ximei replies bluntly. ‘My sister was a _liar_.’

‘Did she lie about her personal life?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Before she died, did she talk to you? About people she was meeting? Talkin’ to?’

‘I—Like I said, she was a thirty-two—’

‘Thirty-two-year-old politician. Yeah, I got that. From you and your mom.’ Guan Shan says, ‘And now she’s dead.’

It hits where it’s meant to, winds her into stunned silence. Guan Shan waits while Ximei turns her head, squints through the window to the towers that stretch up around them, grey columns reaching for a greyer sky. Sleet pats against the window panes, wet smudges streaking the glass.

‘She didn’t talk to me,’ Ximei says quietly. ‘We weren’t close. I’m a florist, and she works for the CPC. She always had bigger goals.’

‘Like fraud.’

Ximei laughs, bitter. ‘Like fraud.’

Guan Shan waits a moment. ‘Fan Ximei, your sister died a week ago. She’d been in that apartment for seven days before she was found. And I think she knew the person who killed her. If you _know_ anythin’...’

‘I don’t. I saw her once a week for dinner with my mom. Before she moved in with my mom, we caught up… I don’t know. Every couple of months? She had her life, I had mine. I liked spending time with her sometimes, but it was also kind of shit. This constant competition. You know?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You have siblings?’

‘No,’ Guan Shan replies. ‘But I know how it feels.’

Fan Ximei assesses him, and then she shakes her head. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this,’ she mutters. ‘You’ll think I killed her.’

‘I don’t,’ he says. He nods at the laptop on the desk. ‘Do you know how to get on there?’

Ximei glances over her shoulder, and breathes out slowly. ‘She hasn’t changed her password since eighth-grade,’ she says, pulling up the desk chair and lifting the lid of the laptop. ‘I already let the cops take a look.’

Guan Shan narrows his eyes as he moves to stand at her side. ‘They didn’t take it for evidence.’

Ximei shrugs, keying in the password. ‘I guess they didn’t think it was important enough.’

‘Were they in here alone?’

‘Why does that matter?’ Ximei asks while the loading screen spins.

Guan Shan pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘’Cause it does.’

‘I showed them in,’ Ximei says slowly, recollecting. ‘Let the woman take a look at the laptop—and then I went back into the kitchen to get them tea. My mom was speaking to the male officer and…’ She leans forward. _‘What the hell…’_

Guan Shan frowns at her, folds his arms. ‘What is it?’

Ximei clicks frantically through to the hard drive, the control panel, the cloud storage. ‘The stuff that was on here—it’s gone. She had all these files and emails saved on here. All her software’s gone too.’ Ximei looks up at him. ‘Why would they _do_ that?’

Guan Shan looks grimly at the screen. Default factory reset. It would have taken a few minutes with a pre-coded USB. A standard wipe while Mrs Li sniffed into her tea and Ximei answered the officer’s questions, grieving and frustrated—and oblivious.

‘If you let me borrow this for a while,’ Guan Shan tells her, nodding at the laptop, ‘I could find that out for you.’

* * *

Guan Shan’s phone starts ringing at 10pm that night, halfway through an attempt to pack a duffel bag. He gets distracted every couple of minutes, flashes in his head stopping him as he walks around his apartment, rifles through his underwear drawer, types out an email: Fan Xuemei swollen in the freezer drawer of the morgue, the wilting orchid on her desk, the infomercial on her mother’s TV.

Bursts of imagery glare in his cerebral cortex like _blitzkrieg_—stunning him and flattening his movements like bombed foundations. They will go, eventually, distracting moments that will space themselves out into non-existence, half-recollections that cross his mind in the seconds before sleep and the nights deep into the bottle, but for now he’ll take them. Fold himself around them like healing over bullet wounds—and carry on.

He’s grateful for the name that flashes on his phone later that night, swipes to accept the call with a breath of quiet relief.

‘Grey,’ he says. ‘You good?’

‘Hey, man. Is there a reason I just signed for some dead woman’s laptop from a TTK courier?’

Slowly, Guan Shan puts down the pile of folded shirts and grasps the phone currently cradled between ear and shoulder.

‘Shit… I meant to tell you, man. I didn’t think it would get there so fuckin’ soon.’

‘You chose twelve-hour express service, right?’ Grey asks him.

Guan Shan frowns. ‘Yeah, why?’

‘Well, uh, it’s twelve hours later. And it’s here.’

Guan Shan swallows a sigh. ‘I need you to work on it for me. I’ll pay you. It’s for a case.’

‘Do I get to know what kind of case this time?’

Guan Shan grimaces. ‘It’s better you don’t know.’

‘Isn’t it always?’

Guan Shan sits down on the end of his mattress, knees drawn up. He has a duffel bag between the mattress and wall, half-full of wires and spare charging cables tied together with elastic bands, a bottle of _baijiu_ and two sets of underwear and shirts. It’s too early to pack, only Thursday, but something itches at him. An urge for readiness—for a packed bag and a fuelled car. Just in case.

‘Can you at least tell me what it is I’m supposed to be looking for?’

Guan Shan concedes—he can give him that. ‘Emails. Communications. Get back any data you can. I don’t know how the fuck it was wiped but there should be a layer of somethin’ still sittin’ in the hard drive.’

Grey makes an exasperated sound. ‘Red, if it was wiped… I can’t promise much.’

‘Didn’t you tell me deleted data was like... layers at a landfill, just pilin’ up?’

Grey sucks on the inside of his cheek. ‘Yeah, and trying to get to it is like digging through layers of _shit_.’ There’s clattering in the background, words murmured unintelligibly. ‘It’s _physically _still intact but it could’ve been magnetised. The data could’ve been overwritten too if they were smart about it.’

Guan Shan’s fingers twitch as Grey conjectures, and he shakes his hand impatiently. ‘Just get me somethin’ I can work with, yeah? And be careful if you do. Real careful.’

‘You want express service for this too?’ Grey asks dryly.

Guan Shan rolls his eyes. ‘Just tell me when you’ve got somethin’, all right?’

‘Will do, boss. Maybe not before New Year’s, but I’ll see what I can do.’ Guan Shan hears more clattering in the background, wires unplugged, tapping on a keyboard as Grey sets Fan Xuemei’s laptop down on a dock for data extraction. ‘Hey, you gonna be in Guangzhou this weekend?’

‘For a few days,’ Guan Shan replies. ‘You need a ride from Shanghai?’

‘You’re drivin’ from _Tianjin_? Man, just get a fucking flight. I’m sure your ma would pay for a first-class ticket just to see you.’

Guan Shan hesitates. ‘He Tian’s in the city. He offered to take me.’

Guan Shan expects the silence, and he expects the swearing that follows, exasperation loud and clear through the speaker. Guan Shan looks at the bottle of _baijiu_, considering. He has work to do, but a burn on his breath like too-cold air sounds good right now.

‘I’ll wire you the money myself if things are that fucking bad,’ Grey grumbles eventually. ‘I thought you were _out_ of that shit, man…’

‘He turned up last week,’ Guan Shan mutters. ‘He was just—here.’

‘And you let him in?’

‘I didn’t have a choice,’ Guan Shan says, a little harsher than intended. But Grey’s words stop him. Guan Shan sought him out. Messaged him. Invited him into his home. Poured him tea and watched him sit across the desk and didn’t say no. Why didn’t he say no? ‘He does what he fuckin’ wants.’

Grey swears again. ‘You’ve gotta stop thinking you have no control over this guy, Red. You’ve gotta stop with _no choice _and _no agency_ shit. You start to believe that and it comes true.’

There’s a lump on the inside of his cheek, a knot of flesh he’s chewed at and bitten at just for the blood; half-moon imprints on the meat of his palms, right where the life lines meet; a groove over his wrist, thumb nail etching its path through the blue-green web of his artery.

‘It’s not that easy.’

‘If you tell me it’s fuckin’ _complicated_, I swear to god, Red—’

‘You’re not here, all right?’ Guan Shan snaps. ‘You’re not with him. You weren’t with him for six fuckin’ years. You don’t know what he’s like.’

‘Is he different? Has he come back changed? A guy like that isn’t gonna come out _better_ after a tour in fuck-knows-where. I watched _you_ change and you still haven’t found your way back.’

‘You don’t know me, Grey,’ Guan Shan grits out.

‘I’ve known you since we were in fucking _diapers_, Red. We went to _school_ together.’

‘And now you work on computers for me. And I pay you.’

‘Don’t do that,’ Grey sighs. ‘Don’t shut people out who give a shit about you. You’re right that I don’t know what he’s like, but I know what _you’re _like when you’re with him. And I don’t like it. I’m sorry, man, but I don’t like you when you’re with him.’

‘Lucky you,’ says Guan Shan, ready to hang up. ‘I get to have that feelin’ every fuckin’ day.’

* * *

Maybe it’s spite. Maybe it’s pettiness. Probably, it’s a fallback that he hasn’t grown out of—an old habit; an old addiction he can scratch at with a number keyed into his phone when he’s a quarter-bottle deep, screw top lost somewhere under his desk. It’s snowing again outside, a heavy layer building on his windowsill, and he’s trying to tell himself the _baijiu _is keeping him warm while his fingers tremble over the screen.

It rings for thirteen seconds before the line engages, and Guan Shan can hear the smile in He Tian’s voice.

‘Your lead worked out?’ he asks. ‘I’m impressed. You’re fast.’

Guan Shan’s brow furrows. ‘Uh, what?’

There’s a pause.

‘You’re not calling about Fan Xuemei,’ He Tian says, a strange note to his voice.

Guan Shan grips the bottle and takes a heavy swig. ‘I’m not.’

‘Did you hit a dead end?’

‘I found somethin’. It’s takin’ some time and resources I don’t have right now.’

‘Huh,’ says He Tian. There’s a creak, like leather breaking itself in, and a clink. Metal? A glass of wine set down? A bar, maybe. Somewhere with studded seats and chrome fixings, low music and lower lighting and a lingering residue redolent of smoke and cordite.

The picture looks right in Guan Shan’s head; he remembers going with him to places like that. Getting drunk off three drinks and stumbling into his lap in the back of a cab, a hot mouth on his neck and fingers digging into his hip bones and the divots of his thighs, their shirts and jackets and everything else pooling somewhere between the front door and sofa. Gunfire days that moved too fast—days Guan Shan didn’t have to pretend to keep up, or try to.

He shakes himself. He’s not going into that (guns and sex and a barrel in his mouth), and he’s not going into work (bodies on tables and murder talk in a dead woman’s bedroom). He drank for a reason tonight, and now he’s carrying through.

‘I’m callin’ about that offer you made,’ he says. ‘Is it still on the table?’

‘Which offer was that, exactly?’

‘Guangzhou,’ Guan Shan says. His head is starting to feel strange, like he’s sat up too fast, a sharp ache between the eyes that forces them shut. The words come out in short syllables, staccato-like, the tap of a mayfly against a lamp in a dark room. ‘Roadtrip. Tomorrow.’

‘You didn’t buy that train ticket, huh?’ There’s an element of smugness, a self-satisfied edge that says He Tian’s been waiting for this call and it’s come sooner than expected, Guan Shan’s predictability laughable.

Guan Shan's shame tastes like gasoline while He Tian fills the tank.

_Grey was right_, he thinks, but he can’t help himself.

‘Pick me up at seven,’ he orders. ‘You’re payin’ for the room.’

‘I already booked us an Airbnb an hour out of Wuhan,’ He Tian replies, amused. ‘Two bedrooms. We’ll get there by 8pm tomorrow night.’

Predictable. Guan Shan takes another swig.

‘I was gonna say no,’ he says impulsively. He half-blames his loose tongue on the liquor, the other half on a pitiful pretense of self-worth trying to rear its head, ugly and barbed. 'I was gonna get an early train tonight. Without tellin’ you. See how you like it.'

He imagines He Tian's face. The spark sitting in the back of his eyes like the blink of a satellite; the blithe, secretive smile.

He Tian asks, 'What made you change your mind?'

_You did, _Guan Shan could say. He could put it all on someone who would be gladly culpable and swallow down the blame with a grin on his face the size of the moon. After all, He Tian took pleasure in his guilt like the sentence was a testimony, and Guan Shan always sang his praises at the altar.

'I made a choice,' Guan Shan says, adding, 'I'm not too proud to turn down a free ride.'

'Good,' says He Tian, a smile thickening his words like treacle. 'That chip on your shoulder was endearing,' he continues, 'but I always liked you shameless.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please consider leaving a kudos if you enjoyed this chapter!**
> 
> Thank you to Damien for proofreading this for me, and thank you to the following lovely souls for supporting me with my work: Amy, Tracey, Damien, Alex, and Vicky!
> 
> If you would like to support me and/or would like a fic written for you, please check out my [Tumblr!](http://agapaic.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to [Viv](https://lemonysharkbait.tumblr.com/), [Nelli](https://helloworldinsta.tumblr.com/), and [Andy](https://biggisdickis.tumblr.com/) who so kindly proofread this chapter for me!

The drive will take them twenty-two hours with good traffic and He Tian’s foot firm on the pedal. They stop for food, for quick stops on the side of the road to take a piss and stretch their legs and squint at the sky. The humidity is low, which makes standing outside in the sub-zero coldness dry and bearable for a short while before nestling back into warmed leather seats and He Tian’s easy driving along the Daguang Expressway.

He drives a black Model S that must have been fresh off the lot a few months ago; a quiet drive, all electric, something Guan Shan wouldn’t have known the first thing about fixing—no clunky metal parts layered in oil and grime to get under Guan Shan’s nails—and it suits He Tian well. It’s roomy enough that Guan Shan is frequently aware of how much space there is between them. He Tian keeps his hands loose on the wheel and doesn’t have to touch the gear stick except to park, and Guan Shan thinks of all the times their hands held between the stereo controls, and how he can’t feel the bumps in the road or gravel under the tyres.

An hour in, and Guan Shan’s skin is itching. 

‘D’you mind?’ he asks, voice rough from disuse, the both of them settled in a silence particular to watching the sun rise over an open stretch of road, the sky still pinkish well past 8am. 

He Tian glances at him, the cigarette, the finger Guan Shan has on the window control, and he shrugs. ‘Be my guest,’ he says.

A flick of the lighter, and smoke creeps down Guan Shan’s throat and into his lungs, coats his tongue sourly, nicotine jolting beneath his skin. 

He’s getting ready to flick the cigarette butt out the window when He Tian says, ‘You used to hate when I smoked.’ 

It’s harmless, but it makes Guan Shan flinch. _Don’t do that, _he thinks. _Don’t break that rule. No talking about the past._

'It scratches an itch,' he says, and closes the window again. He digs out a pack of gum from the backpack nestled between his feet and peels a stick away from its wrapper. After a moment, indulgent, he adds, 'You used to smoke like a fuckin' freight train.'

He Tian smirks, takes a stick of gum when Guan Shan offers, and pops it in his mouth. 'Guess the itch went away.'

‘Yeah?’ Guan Shan asks, watching He Tian’s jaw work.

He Tian shrugs. ‘Sometimes smoking was the only fucking thing to do. We’d sit around and talk shit and smoke through a pack, just waiting for orders. Sometimes for weeks. I got bored of it.’

‘The smokin’ or the waitin’?’

He Tian smiles slightly. ‘Yes,’ he says.

‘Is that why you quit? ‘Cause you were bored?’

He Tian doesn’t reply at first, neatly shifting lanes to overtake a truck with dark clouds blooming out the exhaust, setting the cruise control to 120km/h, tapping his indicator off. 

Eventually, he says, ‘You know I’m not gonna give you the answers you want, right?’

Guan Shan frowns at him, chewing gum shoved beneath his tongue. ‘The hell you talkin’ about?’

He Tian doesn’t take his eyes off the road. ‘You keep—you want to know more than I can say, Guan Shan. You want to hear things I’m not going to say. Try and make sense of everything that’s happened.’ He pauses, shakes his head. ‘I’m going to disappoint you with my answers. You should be prepared for that.’

‘Prepared for disappointment?’ Guan Shan mutters. ‘You think I haven’t learnt that already?’ 

He Tian rolls his eyes. ‘It’s your perpetual state of being,’ he remarks. ‘You’d think it would make you pleasantly surprised more often, and yet… Aren’t you just the product of disappointment and cynicism? Fuck, you’re not happy even when it’s shoved in your face.’ 

Guan Shan grits his teeth, works hard on not swallowing the gum he smacks loudly between his molars. He’s starting to remember how well they both play this game—harsh truths laid barren and bare like graves in a desert, a competition of who can dig the deepest, sweat and dirt on their brows, shovels resting heavy on their shoulders and bruising their clavicles. 

The thing is, there are too many hours to go, and Guan Shan doesn’t have the strength anymore to keep this up. He remembers days of screaming until they both lost their voices, moving around each other in the apartment like shadows, ships in the night that would have been content to capsize. The memory is like a pit in his stomach, a mottled, heavy weight like fruit stone. 

Guan Shan presses the base of his skull firmer against the headrest. ‘I guess you’ve got someone watchin’ Jian Yi the next few days?’

He Tian glances at him, noting the absence of a retort, the change of subject, and says, ‘He’s covered. Barely necessary with Zhengxi like a fucking shadow at his back, but whatever. I asked him to come with us today.’

Guan Shan wrinkles his nose. ‘Why?’ he asks. ‘It’s not like his mom’s in Guangzhou anymore.’

‘For company,’ He Tian says simply. _A third wheel to ease the tension. Someone who’d laugh at my jokes without spitting in my face. _He Tian marks the sour look on Guan Shan’s face and says, ‘Jealousy doesn’t suit you.’

Guan Shan’s glowers at him. ‘Fuck off. I’m not jealous, I’m—angry.’

‘At what?’

‘Oh, y’know. The usual.’

He Tian hums and says, ‘My little stick of dynamite.’

Guan Shan recoils. ‘Not yours.’

He Tian’s fingers flex around the steering wheel, and he spends too long looking in his rearview mirror. Guan Shan nearly marks him on it when He Tian simply sighs and looks back to the road. It’s not a wistful sound—it’s tired. They spend a few moments in silence. Three tracks from Pearl Jam play their way through, and Guan Shan, with forced endurance, bears them. The fourth track starts up, guitar strumming, Vedder’s voice tremulous through the speakers.

_He stayed in his room with his memories for days… _

‘Jian Yi didn’t know you were back,’ Guan Shan says over the vocals.

‘Why would he?’ He Tian replies.

‘You seem close. All three of you.’

‘Guan Shan—’

‘I’m not _jealous_.’

‘Right,’ He Tian says dryly. ‘You’re angry.’

Guan Shan grits his teeth, and glances at the GPS. Ten hours until Wuhan. There’s a bottle of trazodone pills in his backpack, a packet of peanuts to help them absorb faster into his bloodstream. Only an hour in—he hadn’t expected to think about knocking himself out so soon, but he should’ve.

‘I’m just puttin’ a timeline together,’ he explains. ‘You kept up with them, but you never—’

‘You didn’t want me to reach out to you,’ He Tian cuts in, frowning through the windscreen. The sun is a sharp brightness through the glass, and He Tian flips up the cover of the central compartment, digging blindly for a pair of sunglasses that rest snugly across the bridge of his nose. ‘I thought that was all clear. Abundantly fucking clear.’

‘That I wanted you to leave?’

He Tian clicks his tongue against his teeth in frustration. ‘You did. You did want me to leave, Guan Shan. By the end of it, I fucking wanted to leave too. We were better off not being in each other’s lives.’

120 kilometres an hour. If Guan Shan opened the door now, what would kill him first—bones and torn skin hitting the asphalt or his body wrapped around the front bumper of another car? 

Bitterly, he says, ‘But it was fine for you to be in theirs.’

‘I didn’t _love _them, Guan Shan,’ He Tian bites out. ‘There were never the same kind of consequences.’ He adds, ‘Don’t make this out like it was an easy choice. I thought about it for months before I left.’

‘That’s nice,’ Guan Shan remarks, the note of humour thick with resentment. ‘That’s real fuckin’ nice. I’m happy you got to have that kind of—_training_.’

‘Guan Shan—’ Leather creaks as He Tian squeezes his hands around the wheel. ‘I didn’t ask you to come with me just to go over all this old shit—’

Guan Shan twists in his seat until the seat belt cuts into his neck. ‘Then why _did _you?’ he demands, nostrils flaring. In all the years they were together, He Tian never spent a single New Year’s with his family. ‘Why the fuck am I _here_, He Tian? Why the fuck are you goin’_ back_?’

He can hear the fry in his voice—glottic tremors that beg for truth. Even a semblance of it. Something he can stare at in the mirror and recognise. One thing he knows too well: this trip is a mistake—the both of them two wild things thrown into a locked cage with a taste for blood and bone. Not that they want it from it each other, but instinct is a hard thing to ignore.

Eventually, He Tian sighs. He pushes a button on the console and the music stops, and Guan Shan hears him swallow.

‘My father’s dead, Guan Shan,’ he says. ‘You deserve to know. That’s why I’m going back.’

Guan Shan twists back in his seat, stares out until the tarmac flashing beneath the car makes him feel sick and the sunlight strikes him between the eyes.

‘We’re having a ceremony for the asshole,’ He Tian continues. ‘An anniversary or something. My brother’s idea. No fucking surprises there.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Guan Shan says.

‘I know. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to. I thought it would… be a comfort. After everything.’

‘That’s not—’ Guan Shan closes his eyes. ‘It doesn’t change anything. And I’m sorry, He Tian.’

He Tian nods. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Me too.’

* * *

They get to Wuhan by 8pm, parking up beneath a converted warehouse that He Tian has rented for the night. It’s a relief from the car—too much space, exposed beams and an open plan layout, and Guan Shan feels strange without a wall at his back. He Tian carries their bags up from the car while Guan Shan goes down the street for Japanese takeout and a bottle of _soju_, and within an hour they’ve unfolded in front of the apartment’s projector screen, full of food and half-drunk. 

He Tian picks the movie: a black-and-white country and Western with poor subtitles and too many lines that He Tian knows by heart. The liquor has loosened him, made him slower and his edges less sharp, but Guan Shan isn’t fooled. 

‘We watched this together once,’ He Tian tells him. He’s sitting on the floor, one knee drawn up, his cup held precariously between finger and thumb. He leans his neck back against the sofa and says, ‘Like, years ago. After graduation. Remember?’

Guan Shan rolls his eyes and picks at a piece of pickled radish with his chopsticks. ‘You can’t expect me to remember anythin’ from that night.’

He Tian snorts. ‘You were high or drunk. Or both.’

‘And you were watchin’ American cowboys gallopin’ round the Old West?’

‘And rubbing your back when you threw up.’

Guan Shan pulls a face, chewing. ‘Liar,’ he says. ‘Didn’t happen.’

‘Five times that night,’ He Tian corrects. _‘At least.’ _He shakes his head. His mouth is slightly slack, his eyes unfocused. ‘You made us break into the teacher’s office while everyone was making speeches and took their_ shaojiu_. I swear you were out of it that whole fucking year.’

Guan Shan smiles grimly. ‘Two jobs and basketball and tryna keep my grades up and not get kicked out? You should’ve tried to get through it without somethin’.’ 

He doesn’t add that they’d broken up too many times that year to count, that his dad never made parole, that everyone around him was getting university offers except him, and that no matter how much he succeeded—tried to—he was still set for failure. His start line was too far back, and he was never meant to reach the finish line.

‘You never reached out to me,’ He Tian comments, eyes on the screen where two white men are sitting at the bar: one in black, one in white. ‘I always wanted to help you more than you let me.’

‘For fuck’s…’ Guan Shan puts his chopsticks down. ‘It’s not about you, alright?’

He Tian looks up at him, eyes roaming Guan Shan’s face for a minute, and then he says, ‘You’re right. It wasn’t. It was always about you.’

Guan Shan winces. ‘That’s not—’

‘How you meant it. I know. It’s not how I mean it.’ He Tian’s still looking at him. ‘Everything became about you. I never saw a life where it wasn’t.’

_Obsessed_, a voice says, and Guan Shan knows it’s true. For the both of them. Obsessed with each other; obsessed with the idea of making it work even when it didn’t. The exhaustion of making it work. There was never anything quite like the comfortable consistency of hurt.

‘Is this really what you wanna talk about?’ he asks. ‘You’re goin’ to your dad’s funeral tomorrow and you want to talk about how we used to fuck?’

He Tian’s eyes glitter. ‘We did more than that,’ he says. ‘I can’t think of a better time. I’d piss on his fucking grave if I didn’t think Cheng would shoot me and bury me in it too.’

‘You always said He Cheng hated your dad.’

‘Yeah,’ says He Tian. ‘But he’s got—’ He flicks his fingers, supercilious. ‘—_morals_.’

He says the word, so puritanical, like it’s dirty, but He Tian has no use for something like morality in his line of work. He’s never lived a life where it’s been needed or safe to question. For a moment, Guan Shan thinks about Wang Xi, twisting his own morals and toeing the line just the same. Fan Xuemei, too. Indulging in immorality because the only consequence is death—death for Fan Xuemei, divorced and fraudulent, who hadn’t cared; and Wang Xi, who already knows what it means too well.

Guan Shan doesn’t say any of this aloud. He reaches for the _soju _and pours himself a full cup. 

‘Thought you said your brother’s work was coward's shit. You never wanted to do it ‘cause you’d spend a life goin’ behind people’s backs.’

‘His _work’s _coward’s shit, yes. Him? As a flesh and blood human? He’s as fucking pietous as it gets.’

Guan Shan pauses on a truth they unveiled some years ago and pulls a face, unimpressed. ‘He pretended to kill your fuckin’ dog, He Tian.’

He Tian opens his mouth—closes it. He snorts. ‘He thought he was helping me. He was. What kind of person would I be today without it?’

_Softer. Sweeter. Kinder. Less liable to scratch when you ran your fingernails along my skin._

Guan Shan shakes his head. It feels fuzzy and muted like cotton wool. ‘You’re drunk,’ he says. He shifts awkwardly around He Tian’s frame and gets to his feet, a little unsteady. The room swims for a heartbeat, and he puts a hand on the armrest of the sofa until the ground feels firm beneath his feet again. There’s still food left on the table—half a container of vegetable _yakisoba_, cups of lukewarm _misoshiru_, two Asahi beers they didn’t touch—but Guan Shan isn’t performing clean-up duty now. ‘I’m goin’ to bed.’

‘Hey, Guan Shan—Come on, don’t _leave_,’ He Tian protests from the floor, hitting his hand against the floorboards. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘Makes one of us.’ Guan Shan scrutinises him, looking small and stupid on the floor, dark eyes bleary and his hair mussed from running his fingers through it too many times. ‘We’ve got eleven fuckin’ hours in the car tomorrow. Save your words for then.’

‘Guan Shan—’ He Tian swallows hard enough that it looks painful.

_No._

_Don’t._

Guan Shan’s imagined what he might say with a look like that a hundred times before in a hundred different ways, but they’re five years too late. _I miss you. I shouldn’t have left. I’m sorry._ A flash like a blown fuse jolts down Guan Shan’s spine, fizzling out at his fingertips, the aftershocks of an unremarkable orgasm leaving him numb and spent and dissatisfied.

Guan Shan leaves.

* * *

He’s mostly sober by the time he crawls into bed, skin flushed and damp from a too-hot shower, breath a mingle of mint toothpaste and _soju _that makes him feel nauseous. His room is too big for him, dark wood furnishings, sheets and wallpaper a dark blue. A four-poster bed sits against a wall of exposed brick, and a brass lamp lights up the rest of the room with a dim orange glow. Frost creeps across the old window panes on the wall across from the door, no cracks or leaks to speak of, and the streets below are quiet and dark as he nudges open the window and smokes through two cigarettes.

An electric iron-looking kettle sits on a complimentary tea tray on the dresser, and Guan Shan makes use of the instant oolong. He slides his laptop from his bag while it steeps, and then folds himself into the armchair in the corner of the room, dark blue fabric velvetine to the touch.

He checks in with Jian Yi—_safe, fine, no news_—chases an update from Grey on his laptop—_no progress, have some fucking patience, Red_—and flicks out responses to enquiries he’s received over the course of the day. He finishes his tea while scouring news outlets for possible leads that come up blank, and eventually he has to admit defeat. Despite the intricate network of piping that heats the warehouse well against the wintry cold outside, his sheets are still cool when he gets into bed at 1am.

For an hour, he stares at the ceiling. Tiredness pulls at him behind the eyes, but he can’t sleep. Shapes dart behind the curtains, memories press at him like a headache. The drive, the case, Fan Xuemei’s body in the freezer, He Tian’s unsaid words pressing too close.

‘Fuck you,’ Guan Shan mutters into his pillow, eyes closed, sheets balled in his fists. ‘Fuck you, you John Wayne wannabe fuck.’

He Tian had been waiting for the right moment, waiting for his tongue to loosen enough. Guan Shan squeezes his eyes shut. Would he have meant what he wanted to say? A man who solves things with liquor and cigarettes and—

_No_, Guan Shan reminds himself. Not anymore. That’s him now, isn’t it? He’s exactly who He Tian’s made him.

Guan Shan twists until his curled on his side, back to the door, stomach twisting with something acid-sharp—and jolts upright. 

Shuffling out in the hall. He Tian, fallen asleep on the sofa, now awake and stumbling around outside. There’s a clinking of bottles, the rustle of takeout containers, a 3am cleanup for one. The front door closes and Guan Shan can hear his heartbeat in the silence of the apartment. He pictures He Tian tripping down the stairs, drunken stumblings turning into devastation—and then the front door opens again.

He Tian’s footsteps wander up the hall, echoing off bare brick and exposed pipelines, and Guan Shan can hear the soft padding of his bare feet across the floorboards that come to a stop outside Guan Shan’s door. 

Guan Shan holds his breath, flattens himself against the mattress, and the door opens.

He Tian’s body is a shadow that fills the crack between door and frame, face hidden, breathing laboured as he leans against the frame. Guan Shan counts the seconds of his silence.

‘Hey,’ He Tian murmurs eventually. ‘You awake?’

_No._

Guan Shan swallows, wets his lips. He thinks about pretending to be asleep, of faking a sigh and rolling over and away so he can stare at the wall. Something—fucking stupid—stops him.

'I'm tired as shit, He Tian,' he replies quietly, voice scratched and hoarse from disuse and lack of sleep. 'Go to bed.'

'How can I when you're here?'

Guan Shan's body seizes. The hell is he supposed to say to something like that? The fucking hell is he supposed to think? 'Go to fuckin' bed, He Tian.'

He Tian doesn't. He comes forward from the door frame, reaches Guan Shan's bedside in a few easy strides. When he leans over, his breath smells of garlic and _soju_, and Guan Shan wants to taste it. A hand falls by Guan Shan’s cheek, another by his shoulder, caging him in. It’s too dark, and Guan Shan’s eyes haven’t adjusted; he can’t see He Tian’s eyes.

'Come on, Ah Shan,’ He Tian murmurs, and Guan Shan hears the words low in his belly. ‘Tell me you don't want this.'

_You want this, _a voice whispers. _It's what you've always wanted. _And his body tells him that, yes, this is what he's wanted for a long time. This is what he's been aching for beneath the sheets and in the dark.

But there’s another part of him, quieter and settled, but firm. And it says, _There will be others. There will be more. There will be other mouths to press against my own in frenzy and other places to pocket my love. There have to be. I exist when he's not fucking me._

_‘Get out,’ _he tells him, strangled. Above him, He Tian has stilled. _‘Get the fuck out.’_

He can hear He Tian's anger through the silence; he can hear his war, a fist drawn back, a jaw unhinged and teeth bared. Blood boiled and left to cool like poison in the bloodstream. Eventually, silently, he leaves. Guan Shan spends the night shaking.

* * *

He sleeps for the first five hours of driving the next morning. He Tian fetches food from the bakery down the street: croissants, egg cakes, red bean _baozi_, and two flasks of hot tea for breakfast; an expensive-looking wooden box of dried fruit (figs, candied pineapple, mango) to snack on, and pork belly sandwiches wrapped in wax paper for the journey. 

Guan Shan picks at the pastries, sips a mouthful of tea, then lowers his seat to almost-horizontal by the time they edge back out onto the expressway. The sky is a grey swathe that peters rain down on the windscreen, and Guan Shan jabs a finger into the seat warmer button as they pull away from the warehouse that morning. He’s asleep by the time they cross the Yangtze. 

When he wakes, his tongue tastes sour and thick in his mouth, his eyes groggy. It’s past noon and a glance at the built-in GPS tells him they’re not far from Changsha, and He Tian has pulled into a service station to use the bathroom and refill their flasks. He beelines for the driver’s side five minutes after Guan Shan wakes, food and flasks balanced in his arms, then pauses when his eyes meet Guan Shan’s through the windshield. He changes course, winding his way around the front of the car and tugging open the passenger door. There’s a clunk on the roof as He Tian sets down a flask. 

‘Good morning, sunshine,’ he hums.

Guan Shan grunts at him, flailing when He Tian jabs the upright button on his chair, and takes the flask of freshly brewed tea thrust into his hands. 

‘Here,’ He Tian says, leaning in. He winks. ‘But you look like you could use something stronger.’

Guan Shan shakes his head while He Tian makes his way back around to driver’s side and starts the engine. ‘I can still smell it on you,’ Guan Shan tells him, voice gruff. He’s been breathing in the smell of He Tian’s pores for the past few hours, stale Japanese liquor filling the car like a cheap air freshener. ‘Drinkin’ anythin’ right now would make me sick.’

‘Hair of the dog never hurt anyone,’ He Tian remarks, easing out of the service station and back onto the highway. Guan Shan eyes the flask kept still between He Tian’s thighs, and shakes his head. How much of a bottle has He Tian poured in there?

‘Thought I was the one who drank too much,’ Guan Shan says dryly. ‘If you get pulled over—’

‘We won’t,’ says He Tian assuredly, filled with an immeasurable confidence that Guan Shan used to believe in so easily once. ‘And given the day I’ve got ahead of me, I think I need it.’

‘And what kinda day is that?’

He Tian checks his wing mirrors, lets the car glide over the speed limit and into the fast lane. ‘It’s the rest of this drive,’ he says. ‘It’s going back home. To that house. Being around everyone.’ He pauses and clears his throat. ‘Listen, last night was—’

‘A mistake.’ 

He Tian’s gaze flashes towards him, then away just as fast. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘I was drunk.’ He manoeuvres the flask into his hand and takes a sip, winces. ‘I scared you.’

Guan Shan pulls a face. ‘You pissed me off.’

It’s not a denial; it’s a half-truth that He Tian will scrutinise and pull apart with his teeth until he gets it down to the marrow of what Guan Shan doesn’t say. Which is, _You did._

‘I pissed you off,’ He Tian murmurs. ‘Huh. Haven’t I heard that before?’

‘Too many fuckin’ times.’

He Tian grins. ‘I guess that’s true.’ He cracks the lid on his flask again and swallows, swallows, swallows.

Guan Shan rubs his temples. ‘You want me to drive?’

‘You got less sleep than I did. It’s either you asleep at the wheel, or me drunk. Take your pick.’ He Tian slides his gaze across. ‘Unless you want me to pull over for another night?’

‘I’m not spending another fuckin’ day in this car with you.’

‘Aw, you hurt me, sweetheart,’ He Tian says, pulling a face.

‘You hurt yourself,’ Guan Shan counters.

‘We’re good at that, aren’t we?’

There’s a camaraderie in the comment, the thrill of a shared sin, a look shared as they leave the confessional—and Guan Shan wants no fucking part in it. There isn’t a _we. _There isn’t an _us. _There hasn’t been for a long time, and Guan Shan isn’t going to press at that bone, still smarting from the break.

‘Just fuckin’ drive,’ Guan Shan says. ‘My mom’s expecting me home by midnight. In one piece.’

He Tian reaches over to turn down the heating. It’s warmer this far south, snow turned to rain, wet tarmac glaring brightly beneath a clouded sun. Guan Shan pulls down his visor and shuts his eyes against the brightness, sighs when He Tian asks, ‘How is she these days?’

‘You don’t know?’ Guan Shan says, bitterly. ‘You haven’t been trackin’ her too?’

He Tian ignores him. ‘Is she still at the hospital?’

‘She’s there,’ Guan Shan replies. He cracks his eyes open. ‘Takes more shifts than she used to. Doesn’t know what to do with herself since I’ve been in Tianjin.’

‘Has she met anyone?’

Guan Shan pauses and narrows his eyes. ‘Like who?’

He Tian presses his lips to fight a smile. ‘Come on,’ he says, caustic. ‘She needs a life bigger than you. You know that.’

Guan Shan’s tongue is sharp and cold. ‘I know her more than you ever could.’

He Tian lifts a hand off the wheel, raises it in defence. ‘Steady,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t going there.’

‘You’re fuckin’ right you weren’t,’ Guan Shan spits, twisting in his seat. ‘You’ve messed my family up enough, all of you. Stay the _fuck_ out.’

Silence; a chalky aftertaste on Guan Shan’s tongue. He Tian shakes his head as he stares through the windscreen. His mouth has a hard, pinched edge to it as he takes the next mouthful from his flask, defiant. 

‘Fuck,’ he says, in the same way Guan Shan had said, _A mistake. _

Guan Shan turns back in his seat. They could have made this journey about work—they could have made it about Jian Yi and Zhan Zhengxi. They could have made it about everything but them, but what else was there? What else tethered them enough to make them both burn? Black and ashen down to the end of the rope, frayed fibres singed and smoking.

A history burnt down to the ruins, a skeleton they still pick apart like carrion. 

Guan Shan reaches over and takes He Tian’s flask from between his thighs. The tea is lukewarm by now and hits the back of his throat like paint stripper.

_‘Oh—Jesus—’_ Guan Shan gags. He tries not to throw it back up, and closes his eyes in an effort of concentration, mouth trembling and throat spasming. He Tian plucks the flask from his hands after another moment and slides it into the cup-holder on his door, safely stowed.

‘Feel better?’ He Tian asks, only slightly smug.

Guan Shan’s eyes are still stinging. ‘Fuck you.’

He Tian shrugs. 

* * *

He Tian is heavy-footed on the brakes and slow to check his blind spots by the time he rolls the car outside Guan Shan’s old apartment block, and Guan Shan shakes himself into wakefulness. He Tian has his cheek pressed against his fist, and he’s looking up at the block with a strange expression. Guan Shan wonders if He Tian sees what he does: the yellowing, lace curtains illuminated by balcony lighting; the web of washing lines and clothes doused in mildew; rusted copper balconies, exposed gutters, and air conditioning units clogged with dust and dirt. Wisteria and woodbine creep over the concrete, nudging at windows and balcony doors, green and purple flashes against the grey. The vines have grown since Guan Shan last saw them, some parts intertwined and strangling, any efforts to cut it abandoned.

_Home_, Guan Shan thinks, looking up, even though it’s been a while since the word and place have meant the same. He rolls the window down slightly; the air is cool outside, a touch of warmth. Some of the trees still have their leaves, burnt oranges and browns.

‘Hey,’ says He Tian, the words a murmur. ‘Whatever happened to our apartment?’

Guan Shan rubs his eyes. ‘You mean you don’t—’

‘No,’ He Tian interrupts softly. ‘No, I don’t know. I really didn’t watch as closely as you seem to want to think I did.’

‘That’s not—’ Guan Shan stops himself. It’s quiet in the car—no thrum of an electric engine, loose gravel beneath the tyres. The city seems to have made a vacuum around them, and Guan Shan can hear their breathing. ‘I sold it.’

He Tian frowns quizzically, but the news doesn’t seem to surprise him. There’s no look of hurt, of bruised sentimentality. Guan Shan was never going to stay within those walls on his own; by the end of it, he’d barely wanted to be there together. They’d known that well.

He Tian asks, ‘But you’re renting the unit in Tianjin? You don’t own it?

Guan Shan knows what he’s asking. Their apartment had been worth a small fortune; Guan Shan could have bought four of the apartments he lives in now with that kind of money. Why hadn’t he put it back into property? Why was a plane ticket still out of the question? Hadn’t He Tian _left _him something? A gift—an opportunity. 

‘I’m rentin’,’ Guan Shan confirms eventually. ‘I don’t think…’ He trails off, starts again: ‘You never really understood how much fuckin’ debt there was to clear. You never understood the cycle.’

It wasn’t like He Tian didn’t have empathy, or sympathy—it was that he couldn’t. How could Guan Shan explain it to someone who saw solutions—outlandish, unpredictable, unachievable—to every problem he heard?

The cycle. It started when they lost the business, when the protection ran out, when the police got a big enough whiff and the money to make them look the other way dried up. It started when Guan Shan’s dad went to prison, when the bailiffs came, when Guan Shan’s mother got sick and the debts started rearing their heads and she started to sign without reading. It started when they paid off too late—and kept borrowing. 

Because the only way out was up, right? 

_Wrong, _a voice snarls._ The only way out is to dig your way out even when you break your fucking fingers._

‘You’re good now?’ He Tian asks. ‘You’re in the clear?’

‘I’m good enough.’ Guan Shan narrows his eyes. He knows He Tian; he knows he could wake up in the morning and find that He Tian had taken over as landlord, the key to the castle shoved in his mailbox. ‘Don’t take it as an invitation for charity.’ 

He Tian slides his gaze over. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I won’t give you anything unless you ask for it.’

_Unless you beg._

Heat prickles on the back of Guan Shan’s neck, little bites of shame that draw out the blood and make him scratch at his skin. He spits out the car window and onto the pavement. ‘Jesus, I fuckin’ hate you.’

He Tian smiles at him, syrupy. He leans in close, and Guan Shan can smell the booze on his breath, the sour sweat that’s pooled into his shirt. Something woodsy and damp, like day-old cologne. He croons, ‘Then what are you still doing in my car, sweetheart?’

He’s right. He’s exactly right. 

Guan Shan gets out the car.

He opens the back door and snatches his duffel bag from the backseat. He Tian has an arm around the back of the passenger seat and his eyebrows raised.

‘What about a ride home?’ He Tian says, while Guan Shan shoulders his bag. ‘I’ll be leaving Monday, if you want it.’

Guan Shan works his jaw and leans in. ‘I’ll message you,’ he says, ready to slam the door shut. ‘Enjoy the memorial.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please consider supporting me if you liked this work - you can find out how via my [Tumblr](agapaic.tumblr.com)!**
> 
> Wishing you all a wonderful couple of weeks over this festive period, and thank you all for reading this work! See you all in the New Year if not before!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to [Viv](https://lemonysharkbait.tumblr.com/), [Nelli](https://helloworldinsta.tumblr.com/), and [Andy](https://biggisdickis.tumblr.com/) who so kindly proofread this chapter for me!

His mother’s home is a place of quietness, warmth, feet hanging over the edge of his too-small bed, water always boiled for tea, leftovers in the fridge. They clean on New Year's Eve, ritual movements that keep Guan Shan’s hands and mind busy, but there's not much to do. A woman who takes more shifts than is healthy and lives alone can't make much mess.

Guan Shan keeps up with the charade anyway; he cleans out an already-skeleton closet and takes his clothes to a charity drop-off, empties and restocks the kitchen cupboards, scrubs the floor on his hands and knees. He cleans until the small apartment smells heavy with vinegar and lemon oil, and lights enough incense to chase away the year's spirits but not the endless thoughts of last night and of He Tian.

‘Wish you’d shown that much dedication to cleaning your room,’ his mother says, leaning her hip against the fridge, a cup of hot water cradled in her hands.

Guan Shan scowls up at her as he wipes the skirting boards. ‘I kept it tidy. I cleaned. I _cooked._’

She grins. ‘Only teasing.’ She reaches over for a tea towel, cuffs him lightly over the head with it until his hair ruffles. ‘You’re worse than your _bàba_ was. He always riled up so fast. It was too easy.’

Guan Shan says, ‘He used to say I got it from you.’

She scoffs. ‘Of course he’d say _that_, the little liar.’

Guan Shan looks at her. She’s different when she talks about him, a change in her face. Suddenly, young and old, stuck in a kind of limbo, a time and place Guan Shan didn’t get to see. It’s the same kind of expression He Tian wore the night before. _What ever happened to our apartment? _he’d asked, a hand outstretched for the key, pressing at locked memories.

Guan Shan gets to his feet, rolls out the ache in his shoulders and spine, the pressure behind his eyes like a bruise. He could sleep now, curl up into the warmth of familiar sheets, redolent of his ma’s laundry detergent, wild lavender and ethanol. Instead, he wants another shower--to wash off the drive, the interrupted night in the warehouse, the tiredness he can't sleep away, and the layer that sits on his skin that soap and too-hot water won't leave clean.

His mother must sense something, hear his inward sigh. She puts her mug down, steps forward.

‘Hey,’ she says softly. ‘Come outside. I’ve been wanting to show you something.’

She doesn’t wait for him, heading through the living area and sliding the balcony doors open. After a moment of confusion, he follows her.

Outside, he tugs his shirt sleeves down against the cool air, and pauses. ‘Huh,’ he says, peering at the little makeshift garden she’s made out of their balcony, busy with gnarly branches, green foliage and hidden gems of red, a bundle of hot chillies gleaming. Perennial herbs hang in their pots attached to the railing, lush and blooming, shivering in the breeze. There’s a small planter of spring onions, green shoots thrusting from the soil, and Guan Shan can smell the liquorice perfume of star anise, the tree crowding up to the balcony’s ceiling.‘You’ve been busy.’

‘It’s mostly the same,’ she says. ‘Just more of it. The fenugreek is new. I’m still trying to keep the Thai basil alive—you know it’s tempramental in winter.’ She brushes a hand under a crowd of small leaves the size of her fingertips. ‘The tomatoes did well this year. Ling Xinyue even bought some, and you know what she’s like.’

‘Yeah,’ says Guan Shan. He looks at his mother.

_You shouldn’t be here, _he thinks. _I should’ve taken you somewhere better. A room with a view. A garden._

‘You don’t even need me anymore,’ he says lightly.

She gives him the kind of look they’ve both inherited from his dad, sour and wordless, a slight downward tilt of her head. _You know that’s not true. _

‘Get some water for me, please?’ she says instead, handing him a dented tin watering can.

He obliges, fills it up from the tap in the kitchen, and heads back onto the balcony..

‘There’s an allotment I’ve had my eye on,’ she tells him when he comes back, pulling out a small floral kneeling mat from beneath the foot stool. She sets it down in front of the herb pots and sets to picking off the leaves grown brown and withered into her cupped palm. ‘It’s a way out from here, on one of the islands. Liyuzhou. There’s a quick ferry from Dongguan.’

_Dongguan?_ Guan Shan frowns, watering the thyme. Dongguan is an hour’s train ride away, twenty yuan for a hard seat, depending on the time. But that’s not what stops him.

‘You hate boats,’ he says.

She pulls a face. ‘I don’t _hate _them, Guan Shan. It’s—you know, a strong dislike. And I wouldn’t be taking it all the time.’

_Why not? _he nearly asks, but he catches on quick. He knows what she isn’t saying.

He pictures it: a small room for rent on the island away from the factories, mornings and evenings at the allotment, no cars allowed. A neat line of brick and wood houses built back in the 60’s for the fishing community. They went there once when he was a kid, a weekend trip, the short ride on a blue boat, deep-lined faces and heads of grey hair. His dad, chef’s whites abandoned, sitting on a bench in the sun.

It’s perfect.

‘You’re… gonna move out for an _allotment_?’ he asks. ‘What about the hospital? Your job—’

She shrugs, inspecting the sage, a soft leaf rubbed between forefinger and thumb. ‘I’ve been looking at cutting my hours. I’m nearly fifty, Ah-Shan.’ His ma plucks a small pair of secateurs from her pocket and clips off a stem of coriander. She looks at the herbs in her palm, the dead leaves in the other, and nods.

_She needs a life bigger than you. You know that._

‘Ma…’ he starts, taking a step forward.

‘Your father would have wanted this, Guan Shan,’ she says, fists against her thighs, gently curled. ‘Heaven knows he spent long enough in that cell to know we shouldn’t have to treat this place like one too.’ She smiles at him over her shoulder. ‘He’s not here, and you’re not here. What’s a girl like me to do?’

‘Move to Tianjin,’ Guan Shan says, all impulse. ‘You can stay with me. Get a job at one of the hospitals—they always need nurses.’

‘Guangzhou A&E’s bad enough,’ she says. ‘I hate to think what it’s like working in Tianjin.’ Before he can protest, she looks at him archly and pushes herself up onto her feet, one hand on her knee for support. ‘Last time I called you on WeChat you were sleeping on a mattress on the floor.’

‘That’s—’ Guan Shan wants to kick himself for letting her see something like that. ‘We can get a place together. Two bedrooms. A bigger balcony. An allotment. The two of us.’

Her mouth twists, eyes touched with humour. She has her hands on her hips. ‘What twenty-four-year-old boy wants to move back in with their old _māma_?’

It’s her light way of saying _I don’t think so. _A way of laughing at him without hurting him. A way of shedding light on his own ridiculousness. He’s aware of it already, and he plays the game, laughs it off with a husky sound that reverberates in his throat.

‘I dunno,’ he says, defeated. ‘Will you do my laundry if I do?’

He’s rewarded: a look of faux scandal, the cuff across his head, and his mother’s bright laughter following him back inside.

* * *

‘So who drove you all the way down here in that fancy car last night?’ she asks him later.

They’ve showered, hung up paper decorations and swept away the clippings, and drunk too many cups of tea. It’s growing dark out, sunset touching the horizon, strokes of pink and purpling clouds, and the fireworks will start soon. Guan Shan’s ma has prepped mostly everything for their Reunion Dinner for two, and now they put together the final pieces.

Guan Shan turns to her, hands submerged in a bowl of soaking rice, the water a murky white, shakes his head. ‘How d’you know what car I came in?’ he asks. ‘Were you watchin’ me?’

She scoffs. ‘Of course not. Qin Wei from next door was.’

‘Typical,’ Guan Shan mutters, rolling his eyes. ‘That woman needs to get out more.’

‘Maybe,’ is all she says. Guan Shan knows she’s waiting for an answer, and he remembers something she’d said to him once: _The things you feel uncomfortable telling me might be the ones I should know. _

‘I’ll tell you later, yeah?’ he offers.

She puts her hands on her hips, a furrow between her brows. ‘Now you’ve got me worried, Guan Shan.’

‘Don’t be. I got here, didn’t I?’ Lightly, he adds, ‘Maybe if you and Qin Wei hadn’t been _gossipin’ _you wouldn’t be worried at all, eh? Thought about that?’

She waves a dish towel in his direction, and he ducks as he carries the bowl of rice over to the sink, pouring the rice into a sieve, and tipping it back into a bowl of fresh water. There'll be too much food for the two of them—there always is, every meal made for an impossible family of three.

His mother, watching him, is quiet.

‘Your head’s loud,’ he tells her. ‘What’re you thinkin’?’

‘You should come home,’ she says. ‘I need someone to look after me.’

Guan Shan snorts. ‘You need someone to look _after_,’ he corrects, shifting the rice grains around the bowl. ‘Aren't all your patients enough?’

‘They're my job. Not my family.’

Fingers wet, Guan Shan scratches at his eyebrow with the palm of his hand. ‘Ma…’

‘I know. I’ve got plans. The allotment. You’ve got what you have in Tianjin. Doesn’t stop me feeling it, though.’

‘Empty nest syndrome?’ he asks, taking the bowl back to the sink for the last time before emptying the drained rice into the rice cooker.

His ma rolls her eyes. ‘Don’t make it so _technical_, detective,’ she says, fetching a chopping board heavy with green beans, the ends discarded for her small compost bin, ready to be stir-fried in a sauce Guan Shan has had sitting in the fridge. ‘Those questions of yours are a little sharp sometimes, you know.’

Guan Shan clicks the rice cooker on. ‘That’s my job.’

‘Oh, really?’ she asks, humoured. ‘Are we at work right now?’

‘Dad would’ve said so.’ Guan Shan drops his voice slightly and says, half-mockingly, _‘The kitchen is my office.’_

His ma is pouring oil into the wok, hot enough to spit, and his words make her pause. It’s unlike him; his mother’s usually the one drawn to that brand of melancholy, which he indulges her in after a drink or three, and he’s not sure what compels him to say it.

‘You’re right,’ she says, pointing a metal spatula in his direction. ‘He couldn’t stand this kitchen, though. He would’ve slept at that restaurant if he could. Some nights he _did._’

‘He worked with what he had.’

‘Can’t fault him for it,’ she agrees.

They cook the rest of the meal in thoughtful silence. Guan Shan knows his mother’s thinking about his dad—and he’s thinking about He Tian. He looked it up online last night, pouring through articles on the man’s death, no cause listed. Mr He had earned the titles of _philanthropist _and _art collector_ and, vaguely, _businessman. _Nothing mentioned the nature of his work, the scourge of his well-networked family, his history in the military. It’s not a surprise. The He’s family home is a barricade against public scrutiny, and Mr He had built a bastille of secrecy that he paid for in blood.

_No, not built_, Guan SHan reminds himself._ Inherited. _The He’s are a beast centuries in the making, and He Tian’s father is just its now-dead figurehead carrying on the tradition of murder and bribery—and all the sordid rest that comes with it.

Where does that put He Tian? Guan Shan wonders. Where does it put He Cheng, supposedly retired? Will He Tian, who always spat in the face of his father’s customs and protocols, now wear the heavy crown? He’s always been an unwilling heir, but Guan Shan knows there’s a part of him, small and sequestered like a secret, that might do something… not good, but different.

He watches his ma while they eat, their Reunion dinner a banquet of rice and soup, shrimp _jiaozi_ and garlicky green beans, twice-cooked pork ribs and a whole red snapper braised with chilli sauce. _Does she know?_ he wonders. _Does she know he’s dead? _Her face is made pink with wine against the red dress she wears, and he wonders if she lit incense for him. If she knows, Guan Shan thinks next, does she care? He Tian didn’t, ready to defile his father’s grave. His brother can’t have much cared either, his retirement a celebration of his freedom. Shackles of the family business unbound. The scythe laid down to rest.

They stay up late after dinner, watching the Spring Festival Gala on their shitty TV, the picture flicking in and out as the clock approaches midnight. Guan Shan drinks enough to make him warm but not drunk, his mood quiet and halcyon-soft, and his mother sings along to _Gong Xi Gong Xi _on the screen, the music tinny through the speakers, his mother out of tune. A bottle of baijiu sits on the coffee table, three-quarters full.

‘Tonight,’ the presenter is saying on the TV, some cosmopolitan celebrity wrapped in a fur coat, standing against a backdrop of Beijing’s lights, ‘is our moment to think of all those lost, all those born, all those to forgive, and others we should perhaps forget…’

‘Morbid,’ his mother mutters, feet curled beneath her on the sofa, eyelids heavy. ‘Just play the next _xiangsheng._’

_Forgive and forget? _Guan Shan’s thinking_. Is that my only option? _He says, mostly to himself, ‘How long?’

‘Until they play it? Don’t know,’ his ma says, lifting a pork rib to her lips, the meat and glaze gone cold since dinner. ‘Ten minutes for this woman to stop talking, if we’re lucky.’

Guan Shan huffs while she licks sauce from her fingers. ‘No—Ma—how long’s it take to _forgive _someone?’

She slides her gaze across to his. He waits as she sets the plate on the coffee table, pushes the volume button down until the presenters’ voices are background noise.

‘I think it depends,’ she says, wiping her fingertips in a napkin. ‘On what they did. If they apologised.’

‘They did,’ Guan Shan says, abandoning the theoreticals. ‘I mean—yeah, sort of. They gave _reasons._’

‘Good reasons?’

Guan Shan considers it. ‘Haven’t decided yet.’

‘Mm, that’s a hard one,’ she says. ‘You know I can’t make that decision for you.’

‘Didn’t ask you to,’ he says, a little too much like acid for him to stop the way they burn his tongue on execution.

He looks at the TV while she looks at him, eyes pinched at the corners in scrutiny. Measuring, weighing, knowing. He spends too much time around people who _know _him, reading him like an open book, running a finger down his index page and knowing just what they’ll find.

‘That car,’ she says, slow. ‘It was He Tian, wasn’t it? He’s the one that drove you.’

Guan Shan closes his eyes, breathes out through his nose.

_Here we go. _

‘Ma—’

‘You know I never mean anyone any harm, Guan Shan,’ she starts. ‘But sometimes I could _kill _that boy.’

Startled laughter hitches in his throat. The words are miles from what he thought would come from her mouth. His mother, the nurse. His mother, the balcony gardener. His mother, the teenage girl with debts and a kid son and a husband in prison.

It takes a minute, but it makes sense.

‘You know he’s not a boy anymore, Ma,’ he reminds her. ‘Neither am I.’

‘Which makes it worse,’ she says, her tone icy. ‘He needs to grow up. What he did to you—’

‘He has, Ma. He has grown up.’

It’s not a lie. He Tian’s had more than five years with sand under his boots, a rifle cradled in his arms like a child, and a body count that hums in him like a heartbeat. Guan Shan’s seen it in He Tian’s levelled looks, his tiredness, his attempts for reconciliation—justification. _Listen, last night— _

‘Ah Shan,’ his mother says. ‘That heart of yours…’

‘He’s been away. Stationed somewhere in the Middle East. He has a job with the government now.’

She’s still frowning. She doesn’t care about his success, his new ventures. ‘Did he seek you out?’ she asks. ‘That’s just—it’s cruel, Guan Shan. That’s a mean thing to do after what he did to you. Leaving you like that, on your own. Did he go to Tianjin just to laugh or—’

‘He didn’t,’ Guan Shan says, not even knowing if he’s telling the truth or not. ‘I’m workin’ a case that just… brought us back together.’

His ma lifts her cup to her lips. ‘Fate has some twisted sense of humour, doesn’t it?’

_Maybe, _he thinks. Maybe that’s all it’s been—those little red strings, track marks in their skin that won’t fade where the needle started to sew. Nothing to do with He Tian, or how he feels for Guan Shan, which is—nothing at all. Brought to Tianjin for work, finding Guan Shan through sheer coincidence, driving the two of them down to Guangzhou for convenience, for old time’s sake. All of it—just fate and divine _convenience_.

_Yuánfèn_, and nothing more.

Does that make it better or worse, that it’s written, divine and destined? That it has nothing to do with how He Tian might still feel for him?

Guan Shan reaches for the bottle.

How is it that He Tian—not just He Tian, but the thing that had died and rotted over the past five years—still managed to ruin the good things? Celebrations and birthdays and graduations—small, private little victories black-spotted and marked like spoiled sugar.

Angry, vicious kisses in the closet, fumbling hands under the table cloths, bloodied noses and knives in the bathroom, tuxes and clean-pressed shirts spotted with red, too many teeth and too much money, knees kicked apart and spines arched and aching. We shouldn't do this here and (hair pulled) no one's watching and (thumb in the juncture of a thigh) I'm not in the mood and (lips on the pulse) just once, just—fucking—just once, can we not?

Guan Shan rolls with it like a flat stone, down the hill, _plink plink plink_ on the banks of a river and—down.

Guan Shan concedes: this isn’t He Tian. This all happened some thirty—forty years ago. This was beyond the both of them and engraved in the stone before they were born. His eyes flick over to his mother and he says, ‘Did you know his father died last year?’

He wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't looking. But he is—closely. The signs are telltale, a bitter confirmation: her breath catching in her throat, trachea working on a hard swallow. Her hand shakes around her cup, enough _baijiu _to make her eyes water.

‘That’s—very sad news,’ she says. She sags in her seat, eyes drooping, mouth tugged down at the corners. He doesn't know if she's telling the truth—if this new knowledge is a burden or, just maybe, a relief. He puts himself in her place: twenty years later, the news of He Tian’s death laid out and offered up like an extra New Year’s dish. How would it twist at his insides—like morphine, like deliverance, some warped horror that mingles with release. The pain of it slashing quick like a blade, blood thin and watery and running for days.

The shallow cuts always bleed the worst.

Guan Shan grimaces at himself now. He can't look at her.

‘I knew him,’ she tells him. ‘Before you were born—I knew him before you were born.’

‘How?’ he asks, knowing the answer, and knowing it’s not one she’ll tell him.

‘Your dad,’ she says. ‘He knew him. Through the restaurant.’

‘Is that why you don’t like He Tian?’ he asks her, digesting her half-truths. ‘Because of his dad?’

‘That’s got nothing—’ She stops herself, wiping a hand over her face, muttering something he can’t catch. ‘The things you’ve said that boy does remind me of him sometimes. But how I feel about his father has nothing to do with He Tian.’

They look each other in the eye, and his mother winces a little. How much of her husband is looking back at her? How much of the expression he wears says that he knows, and that her careful choice of honesty is a useless facade?

‘Guan Shan—’ she starts.

‘Sorry,’ he says, getting up from the sofa. ‘I'll light a joss stick. All this talk—it's bad luck.’

She’s asleep by the time he gets back, sandalwood incense set to burn on the kitchen counter. He sets away the dishes on the draining rack, careful not to let the ceramic clatter too loudly, then ducks out through his bedroom balcony. It’s his first cigarette all day, a different kind of smoke that fills his lungs, and he lets it sit there. He pulls his phone from his pocket.

The dial tone doesn’t ring long before it clicks. Guan Shan’s teeth are chattering through a ‘Hey’.

‘You’re going to miss New Year,’ says He Tian on the end of the line. ‘Wasting your time on the phone with me.’

‘My ma’s asleep on the sofa,’ Guan Shan tells him, leaning against the doors. ‘Couldn’t tell if it was better to call you or go through it alone.’

‘Interesting choice, given how we left things.’

A firework goes off in the distance, a speckled red bloom mostly blocked by a crowd of high rises and financial buildings, followed by another, and another. There are a few minutes left until midnight, but they won’t stop for hours.

‘Sounds loud there,’ says He Tian. ‘You should come here. Watch them from a distance.’

‘And join the funerary proceedin’s?’ Guan Shan retorts. He tugs the pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of his jeans and lights a second cigarette. ‘I think I can manage a few fuckin’ fireworks.’

He Tian doesn’t reply, but Guan Shan hears a bottle clink, the slosh of liquid hitting a glass. A sip here, a bottle there. Probably, He Tian’s had liquor slipping through his bloodstream since he woke up that morning. If he even went to bed.

‘How was it?’ Guan Shan says. ‘With your family?’

‘Hm. Let’s say I’ve had worse New Year’s Eve celebrations.’

‘That shouldn’t surprise me,’ Guan Shan says, because it does.

‘You don’t remember?’ He Tian said. ‘We were twenty. I got pissed and drove into a tree. You fell asleep in a cupboard at Jian Yi’s. No one could find you for four fucking hours. Zhengxi was convinced I’d fucking killed you in the car and buried your body.’

Guan Shan scoffs. ‘I don’t remember that part,’ he says. He takes a drag. ‘I _do _remember arguin’ with you about failin’ my academy exams.’

‘And then you fell asleep,’ He Tian says. ‘And I drove home, or tried to.’

Guan Shan shrugs. ‘Maybe. Whatever.’

_Just take it again, _He Tian had said. _They’ve got to let you in. _They’d argued for weeks after the rejection email dropped in Guan Shan’s inbox, a sore spot like a bee sting or a stubbed toe. How did Guan Shan explain that there were no second chances for him to someone who had a lifetime’s worth?

He Tian clears his throat. ‘Are you coming back with me in the morning? I’ll book somewhere for tomorrow night. I’m leaving early.’

‘Come on,’ Guan Shan says, clicking his tongue. ‘You’ve already booked somewhere for two. I’m not stupid.’

There’s a smile in He Tian’s voice. ‘I already know that,’ he says. ‘Is that a yes?’

‘I need to talk to my ma. She’s only had a day with me.’

‘You want to get back to the case, don’t you?’ He Tian says. ‘And I thought I was the only one with a codependent relationship with my job.’

‘Fuck off. I’m bein’ paid to find a killer. Those victims didn’t have the luxury of takin’ time off for New Year’s Eve, and neither should I.’

‘You’re being too hard on yourself,’ He Tian sighs. ‘It’s not your job—it’s not your _responsibility _to handle this.’

‘That’s why you’re rushin’ back to Tianjin, isn’t it? To _handle _it.’

He Tian snorts. ‘The government doesn’t hand out holidays for free. I’ve hit my quota.’

‘Like that would stop you,’ Guan Shan remarks.

‘Hey, your understanding of my sense of responsibility—or lack of it—is pretty fucking remarkable. What do I need to do to prove myself to you?’

_That’s a fucking question. _

Guan Shan says, ‘Prove what?’

‘That I’m different.’

Guan Shan shakes his head. ‘You _really _think you are.’

‘Don’t you?’

Another burst of fireworks goes off, blooming behind his eyelids when he blinks. They’re louder this time, more intense. Incendiary. Guan Shan glances at his watch and shakes his head. He’s missed it. They’ve both missed it, caught up in the kind of conversation that has no end. How many years did they spend before, drunk or high or both, lips pressed to lips or hands between thighs while the sky rained with pyrotechnic stars.

‘I’ve gotta go,’ Guan Shan sighs. ‘My ma will be awake with all this noise.’

‘Tomorrow—’

‘I’ll let you know,’ Guan Shan repeats, cutting He Tian off. He’ll be up early anyway; even at home, sleep isn’t easy to find.

* * *

She’s still sleeping when he goes back inside, and he lets her, volume set to a low buzz on the TV, blanket draped across her lap. He cleans up around her, food covered with cling wrap in the fridge, crockery washed and left to drain, and moves into his room. A cup of hot water sits on the desk, and a small desk lamp lights up the keys of his laptop as he sets himself down in front of it.

He works through emails, enquiries, and brings up his digital record of victims, Jian Yi’s name sporting a question mark. Within an hour, he receives an email from Jian Yi’s mother and finds the guest list from the gala Jian Yi attended attached. Guan Shan doesn’t ask how she got it, or who she has under her thumb in the government walls. Maybe, he wonders, it was simply Jian Yi’s contribution to place the list in his mother’s hands.

_If he’s seen snooping around Zhongnanhai, _Guan Shan thinks, _he’s gonna have to start answering some uncomfortable questions._

Really, he knows Jian Yi has no part in it. He’d probably ignore the attempts on his life if he could—if his mother and Zhan Zhengxi hadn’t started demanding a culprit. Jian Yi, probably, sees the whole thing as too much effort. Too much about _him. _It’s a character trait Guan Shan has come to understand over the years: as dramatic as Jian Yi is, as much as he demands an audience, what he gives is a show. A staged performance to distract from what he doesn’t want anyone to see: himself.

Zhan Zhengxi saw it, too. Uncovered it, peeked behind the curtain, and stayed. It’s not the first time Guan Shan wonders how much of his salary is coming from Zhan Zhengxi’s pocket.

Guan Shan eyes the list distractedly, noting names and finding what he can about each of them. They’re civil servants from the Department of Civil Affairs, Culture and Tourism, copywriters and data analysts, Tianjin commuters and rural ministers flown in from the south.

Ziquan Zu, Baimei Yu, Hong Li, Han Xianlan—

Guan Shan pauses. That name. He’s knows that name.

_Weren’t they from Guangzhou? _

Guan Shan fumbles for the backpack at the foot of the desk and tugs out his notebook. His scribbles from last week stare up at him, the brief, staccato notes on those who’ve died and how.

_Han Xianlan, 31, Guangzhou - allergy (peanuts), anaphylaxis (biphasic response) caused cardiac arrest, why no EpiPen?_

Guan Shan drums his fingers against the desk. The woman was born in this city. Died in this city, too. It’s likely she’ll still have relatives here—a husband, maybe children. Parents, too, if they haven’t passed or moved out to the suburbs. Someone who might be able to answer some of Guan Shan’s questions: do they know the unnamed man whose photo Guan Shan has saved to his phone; did they know why she attended the gala; why did Han Xianlan died, the circumstances avoidable?

Guan Shan jumps when a knock sounds at the door, one hand lurching to the lid of his laptop, default defensiveness kicking into play.

‘Only me,’ says his mother, smiling tiredly from the doorway. Her hair is mussed, and she’s pulled a thick dressing gown over her red dress. ‘Not looking at things you shouldn’t be looking at, eh?’

Guan Shan pulls a face. ‘Don’t be gross,’ he tells her. He glances at the clock on the dashboard of his laptop. It’s nearing 2am. He doesn’t know when the time passed, but there’s an ache in his spine and a blurriness to the edges of his vision that says he’s been sitting here for long enough. ‘You should go to bed.’

His mother shuffles in, slippers scuffing against the floorboards. ‘Probably,’ she says, looking around the room like she’s seeing it for the first time. She blinks blearily like she’s trying to see Guan Shan and place him more firmly in it. Her eyes land on the notepad on his desk, and her brows draw together. ‘Han Xianlan,’ she says. ‘I know that name.’

With no finesse, Guan Shan puts a hand over his writing. ‘It’s work stuff.’

His ma glances at him. ‘She was at the hospital a few months ago,’ she says distantly. ‘Came into A&E with her husband.’

‘You remember all your patients’ names?’ Guan Shan asks, leaning back in his chair. Something itches at the back of his neck, like there’s a hand there, fingertips brushing through the fine hair at his nape. A lead.

‘That one I do,’ his mother says. She points at the now-hidden notebook. ‘She went into anaphylaxis. The paramedics stabilised her in the ambulance but she had another reaction a few hours after they brought her in. It was—We felt like we’d missed something. We should have seen it in her vitals. So much should have been preventable. At least you’d think so.’

_Aren’t most deaths? _Guan Shan thinks. Instead, he asks, ‘It was a peanut allergy, right? D’you know why she didn’t have an EpiPen? You’d think someone with that kind of allergy would always be prepared.’

His mother shrugs. ‘That’s a question for the coroner, but EpiPens expire every couple of years. Sometimes people don’t replace them—or can’t afford to.’

Guan Shan glances at his laptop screen. ‘She was a CPC speech writer,’ he says, glancing at the notes. ‘She should’ve had plenty of money.’

His ma clicks her tongue. ‘That’s naive of you,’ she chides. ‘Your _bàba_ owned a restaurant. You wanna explain to people why we didn’t have much?’

‘Ma…’ Guan Shan rubs his forehead. ‘You know I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘You’re thinking like a detective,’ she tells him. She jabs a finger in the direction of his chest. ‘You need to start thinking with that instead.’

Guan Shan grimaces, but he knows she’s right. All the easiest cases get solved when Guan Shan stops thinking logically and starts thinking like a loved one. Like a father, or a brother. Or a son.

‘You know,’ his ma says, voice distant. ‘It was the strangest thing that day. I could’ve _sworn_ I saw your He Tian on the ward when that woman died.’

‘He’s not mine,’ Guan Shan blurts instinctively, then shakes his head. ‘It’s not strange, Ma. Han Xianlan was a politician. He’s been lookin’ into her death. And others.’

His mother frowns, and she looks down at the notebook, at the list of names. ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘But when I saw him—Han Xianlan was still alive.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please consider supporting me if you liked this work - you can find out how via my [Tumblr](agapaic.tumblr.com)!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to [Viv](https://lemonysharkbait.tumblr.com/), [Nelli](https://helloworldinsta.tumblr.com/), and [Andy](https://biggisdickis.tumblr.com/) who so kindly proofread this chapter for me!
> 
> My thoughts go to all those suffering from and affected by COVID-19 at this time. Please be kind, responsible, and do your (peer-reviewed) research.

Their apartment had high ceilings and tall, east-facing windows that fractured pinkish sunlight on their bed in the morning. They would wake, sun-warm and marked with red lines from their bed sheets, and Guan Shan had spent a few mornings convinced—resolutely, absolutely—that he was in heaven. They had a study, which He Tian liked to call Guan Shan’s office, a dining table too big for the number of people they’d ever want over for a meal, and paintings on the wall from an exhibition they’d gone to in London. Before Tianjin, it was the first time Guan Shan had ever been on a plane, quietly proud of the stamp in his passport, nose pressed against the porthole window while He Tian watched other people’s movies through the gaps in the seats. Their hotel room overlooked the Thames. 

They’d had a routine there—morning runs around Tianluhu, tofu pudding for breakfast, He Tian off for meetings by noon in the city and Guan Shan holed up in the study until a case pulled him outside. Dinner together, sometimes takeout, sometimes hotpot at Haidilao. Fucking when they felt like it, which was most of the time—and then He Tian would leave, return back to him after weeks, months—and then not at all. 

He knew when it happened for good. Woke up to their home like the hull of a shipwreck, something ruined and taken in the night, a mausoleum that Guan Shan began to move through like a ghost. Clothes donated or put in boxes, furniture sold on Weibo or Taobao, apartment sent to auction. He spent a month picking up the pieces of a thing that never smashed but fell apart, the glue worn away and joints disintegrated. An organic process, in the end. A natural separation that Guan Shan had almost seen coming through the haze of love like a good night’s sleep and the bitter adrenaline of fighting and fucking. 

He could see most things by then, knew He Tian’s moods like the back of his hand. Knew that He Tian hated his brother as much as he loved him, knew that he liked mala sauce on everything since going to Fujian, and that he hated the cold. Knew He Tian did things—good things—to receive the validation he’d never had as a kid, and knew He Tian still missed his mother. Knew him since he was fourteen, loved him since he was seventeen, knew what was meant by his kisses and the look in his eyes.

All of this is to say—Guan Shan would know if He Tian was a killer.

He’d know if He Tian pulled the trigger for something more than—

More than what? At the end of a gun barrel, did death really change? Did it matter if He Tian was still being paid? Blood money lining his pockets, neat stacks of cash stowed beneath the floorboards, groaning like a cadaver breaking through the rigor mortis with every step.

There has to be a difference, Guan Shan tells himself. There has to be a difference between throwing a grenade in the desert and cutting off someone’s oxygen in a hospital room—between looking through the scope of a Type 85 and pressing a hand between someone’s shoulder blades. Shoving.

Guan Shan looks up at the building of their old apartment from the street, coffee in one hand, cigarette in another. Fig trees line the pavements, their roots webbed and ropey, branches laced with red lanterns. They nudge against French-style balconies filled with cultivated gardens and the perfume of camellias, vining wisteria creeping along the white stone. A street sweeper moves lazily along the road, plucking up scraps of burnt paper tubing from New Year’s fireworks and leaving the tarmac wet and slick. 

He hasn’t been back since he moved out, but he doesn’t stay long—just enough time to finish the coffee in his flask and realise that there are no curtains in the window where his study used to be. Since it was sold, did the buyer rent it out? Turn it into an Airbnb, an artist’s studio, walls in which some new young couple could eat and sleep and fuck and make a home? Have they made use of it in any way? Guan Shan swallows the dregs. It’s not his anymore—it’s not theirs. He can claim no stake in it, only indulge in memories from a far enough distance. Can’t retrace the steps of the wooden floorboards, trail his fingertips across the granite. This is all he gets. Even this is too much and not enough. 

After He Tian left, for a while, he used to dream. Fingers in his hair, He Tian’s mouth at his ear, looking at him the way he used to. Promising him everything the way he used to. A strange, halcyon bliss in which, even in sleep, Guan Shan could feel its wrongness. He’d wake, breathless and choked, grasping at the sheets like his lungs had been snatched from him, would shake on the floor after a shower and wonder if he was supposed to still feel this cold. 

It took a while to leave the bed, to let go. They used to argue themselves hoarse, leave each other numb and vacant, sinking with a cold acceptance that this was it. This was where it had to end. And then when it did, finally, sheets empty and cold—why did it have to be so hard?

_Enough, _Guan Shan thinks. _Fucking enough._

He looks around him, grinds the cigarette beneath his shoe, throws the empty coffee cup in a trash bin, and shoves his hands in his pockets. 

After everything, it’s not his. 

* * *

He left his ma’s apartment early, not before eating enough of her congee to make him feel sick and fill theblur the sensation of a pit in his stomach. They hugged briefly; his mother was never good at goodbyes, and Guan Shan never liked to linger. He goes to the He’s after leaving their old apartment, and he stands before the front entrance to the He’s home, hand raised to knock, heart in his throat, tyres from the taxi grinding against the gravel as the driver turns back up the drive. 

What’s he going to say? Accuse and attack on impulse, or consider the facts? Remain silent and act oblivious? He Tian isn’t stupid—he’ll know if something’s wrong. He’ll pull it out of Guan Shan like a rotten tooth. 

He Tian opens the door. 

‘The staff saw the car coming up the drive,’ says He Tian. He’s dressed for cold northern weather, bomber jacket zipped up to his throat, gloves tucked into the pockets; his leather holdall bag sits against a side table in the hallway, packed and ready. ‘I didn’t think you were going to come.’

Guan Shan drops his hand. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Interesting choice of words,’ He Tian muses. ‘Don’t think we ever got that far, did we?’

Guan Shan ignores him. ‘You gonna let me in?’

In answer, He Tian steps to one side, letting the door swing open. He reveals a familiarly pristine landscape of glass and oak, a mesh of well-sanded edges and cold reflections. The stairway rises up not far behind He Tian, a mezzanine leaning over the edges of the ground floor like an audience for an arena. There are lillies on the hallway table, a vase of Egyptian feathers propped in a corner. Works of abstract and calligraphy hang from the walls that lead back towards the kitchens and lounge spaces and gardens. Guan Shan remembers it all—there isn’t a single part of it changed. He remembers sleepovers as a boy, nights smuggled into He Tian’s old bedroom as a teen like a thief, banquets and strained dinners at He Tian’s side like a broken ornamental piece that couldn’t keep its carved mouth shut. 

A breeze slips through the hallway as he steps inside, and he remembers that too—the slight chill, the fires only stoked in the deepest of winters, the box of blankets He Tian kept hidden beneath his bed. Mr He didn’t like anyone to be too comfortable. 

‘You know,’ says He Tian, shutting the door behind him, ‘you could’ve just called to say you’re not coming.’

‘That’s not—’ Guan Shan stops. He Tian’s playing with him; he’s seen the bag and the taxi driving away. He knows Guan Shan’s here to stay, the small pleasure of it making his mood light—and wary. He has the pliers ready in his hand, and Guan Shan’s teeth are aching from clenching. ‘I wanna talk to you about Han Xianlan.’

He Tian pauses. ‘Rejog my memory?’ he asks. 

‘You know who I’m talkin’ about.’

‘Honestly,’ He Tian says. ‘I really don’t.’

Guan Shan stares at him. Is this a test? Another one of He Tian’s games? How well can he wear murder on his face? Guan Shan already knows the answer to that: He Tian could rip a man’s throat out with his teeth and smile through the gristle of their thorax. 

‘One of the dead ones,’ says Guan Shan, tugging out a sheet of paper with the woman’s face on it, hair cut to her jawline, shrewd eyes that stare out at the print of her employee photo, lipstick wine red. ‘The speech writer with the peanut allergy. She worked in Guangzhou. Remember?’

A blink of realisation. ‘Ah,’ says He Tian, pulling on a pair of gloves. ‘That one.’

‘You were at the hospital when she died,’ says Guan Shan. ‘Before she died. My ma said she saw you.’

He Tian frowns, the facade of struggling through recollection. ‘When?’ he asks. ‘I could’ve been visiting my father.’

‘You said he’s been dead a year. Han Xianlan died in October.’

‘I never said when he died, Guan Shan.’

‘You said you were comin’ back for the anniversary or—’

‘Or something,’ He Tian finishes for the both of them. ‘The twenty-third of October. Just after eight in the morning. I have the certificate, if you want to see it. It’s been a hundred days.’

The challenge in He Tian’s voice shakes him, and a small part of him that wants to say yes makes him feel ill. What kind of face would he be forfeiting—what kind of sacrilege would he be committing? If this was a case, it would be different, but—

_But what? _Guan Shan thinks, shutting down his train of thought. _But fucking what? He’s not yours anymore, and this _is_ a case._ _This is the job. If he was someone else, you’d be holding your hand out for proof. _

Guan Shan takes a minute to think. Not everyone has a final ceremony at the end of the mourning period, but for a man like Mr He, well-connected and well-financed, no one would be surprised to mark the end of his passing with fanfare, with well-wishing for his spirit from this world to the next. For the blood he’s spilled, the necks and promises he’s broken, Guan Shan knows he’ll fucking need it. 

He Tian’s reasoning is simple. A logical, water-tight alibi. 

Guan Shan thinks about the apartment, the bed and love they shared, pulling it from each other like blood from a stone. He thinks about the man he knew, the information he now knows. After all of it, does he really think He Tian’s a killer, rogue enough to start putting his own people in the ground? Did he think it then, even when things got bad, got worse? Does he want to think it? Will it make things easier, somehow? Render He Tian into something monstrous and ruinous, something that tore them apart when they finally had all that they wanted, born from the bad seed of a rotten bloodline. Will it finally let him put the guilt somewhere, put the blame on the thing he loved?

‘Let’s talk outside,’ He Tian says, when Guan Shan doesn’t reply. ‘You can throw all the accusations you want at me there.’

After a moment, Guan Shan follows him out. 

The He’s house sits on the edges of Guangzhou’s cityscape, two thousand feet above sea level and cold in the winter, wind nipping at your skin like a bite on your heels and the curve of your cheeks. There’s a dusting of snow on some of the trees, leafless acacias and large longan boughs that curve over the gardens and lakes of the _siheyuan_. Sacred lilies sprout from tended flower beds, and persimmons hang like globes of honey from their trees. They avoid the cobbled paths, slick with melted ice and patches of moss. He Tian leads the way to a small gazebo in the middle of the lake, the water clear beneath cool blue skies, and his footsteps are loud as they cross over the bridge that connects the structure to land. 

They’d been here before, back when they were seventeen or eighteen. They slipped out through the staff entrance while Jian Yi and Zhengxi watched the rest of a movie. He Tian’s lips seeking the spot behind Guan Shan’s ear before he’d even backed them against the wooden railings of the gazebo. The magnolias had been in full bloom, night air thick with summer heat. It’s cool now, the wood cold and damp, shadows muted and sun low in the sky. 

‘So,’ says He Tian. A twisted wooden loveseat sits in the middle of the gazebo, separating them, and He Tian leans against the far railing, arms folded. ‘You think I killed Han Xianlan.’

‘I never said that,’ Guan Shan says. ‘I just wanna know what you were really doin’ there. I didn’t know about your dad.’

‘And now you do,’ says He Tian. ‘But you’re having some difficulty believing me. I looked into Miss Han’s death after I got the call. I didn’t know she was in the same hospital. I didn’t know who she was before she died.’

‘Your dad never went to hospitals. He didn’t trust them.’

He Tian snorts. ‘That was part of it,’ he says. ‘The other part was letting me and He Cheng build up an immunity or some shit. Grit our teeth against a broken arm. Painkillers were a weakness.’

‘And if you died?’

He Tian lips pull back from his teeth, his smile joyless. ‘The worst weakness of them all.’

Guan Shan knows He Tian’s father was ruthless—they’d had countless conversations where He Tian reminisced about his childhood with a kind of scathing bitterness that made even Guan Shan feel its sting. Stories about He Tian’s mother were halcyon-soft and half-remembered, but his father was an unforgiving figure worthy of none of He Tian’s small offerings of love. And yet he wanted it—Guan Shan knows, despite everything, he wanted it and wants it still. Sees his father in the faces of strangers and passersby—friends and lovers, searching with perpetual earnestness for the thing he never found. 

‘My father got shot, Guan Shan. In Tianhe District. There were ambulances, police. Too many public services. His men couldn’t get him out quick enough and the hospital was only a mile away. They wouldn’t discharge him, told his money to fuck off. He died of sepsis a week later—wouldn’t be surprised if he’s writing a lawsuit against the hospital in his grave.’

Guan Shan wouldn’t either, but it makes him pause. If He Tian’s father died in that hospital, would Guan Shan’s ma have known? Seen his name written on the board of in-patients, changed his dressings, declared the time of death? Was it news to her when Guan Shan told her last night, or had she been sitting with it for months?

‘Who shot him?’ he asks.

‘He Cheng’s been trying to find out, but who wouldn’t want to? Would’ve been fucking typical if he’d lived to ninety, but I guess he lived like he died. Bloodied and chaotic. Poison running through his veins.’

_And what about you?_

‘So you looked into Han Xianlan’s death,’ Guan Shan says eventually. 

‘I did.’ 

‘Find anythin’?’

‘Nothing more than you have, probably. I spoke with her husband, but he couldn’t tell me much.’

‘D’you think he had anythin’ to do with it?’ 

‘Do I think he was working with the assassin? No. Do I think he loved his wife unconditionally and wasn’t a little pleased by her death? I don’t know.’ He Tian scratches his jaw, and shrugs. ‘People are fickle fucks, and they do things I don’t have time to figure out. I know he didn’t know anything about his wife’s killer. He thought the whole thing was an accident, and he wanted to believe it was an accident.’

_Fan Xuemei’s sister didn’t think it was an accident._

‘So you’re sayin’ that spousal murder’s out?’

‘Probably,’ says He Tian, which is the closest thing to certainty he’s going to offer. ‘He let her handle her own medications, and they rarely ate together. From what I could tell looking at the medical reports, someone just had to _breathe _on Ms Xianlan after eating peanuts to trigger her allergies. The man who killed her is the same man who’s killed them all.’

_Falsified reports? _Guan Shan wonders. _Or your falsified truths? _His ma could take a look at the files for him at the hospital, but the day he implicates his mother in a case, let alone a string of political murders, is the day he can never ask her for anything again. 

_Let her move out to Dongguan and buy the allotment. Let her have her flowers and the dirt under her nails and her Thai basil. She’s dealt with enough of your shit for now, and enough of the He’s for a lifetime. _

Guan Shan sighs. ‘I need to start contactin’ the relatives of all the deceased. See if there’s more evidence than they’ve let on.’

‘The police have already questioned them, and so have I,’ He Tian tells him, a warning tone. ‘Be careful you don’t waste your time.’

Guan Shan squints out across the gardens. ‘The coroners are in someone’s pocket. I don’t have much faith in the police, to be fuckin’ honest, and they’re not gonna give me anythin’ if I start snoopin’ around closed cases. They interfered with Fan Xuemei’s laptop—that’s all I need to know.’

He Tian shrugs. ‘If that’s what you think.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means there’s a lot you don’t know, Guan Shan.’

‘And a lot you won’t tell me?’ Guan Shan questions, narrowing his eyes. ‘I know our directives are different. Are your priorities interferin’ with mine?’

‘Guan Shan, sweetheart,’ says He Tian, in a voice that makes Guan Shan flush, tormented and chastised. ‘When have our priorities ever been the same?’

His words make Guan Shan feel spiteful; they narrow his eyes, drop his voice down. ‘Is that your way of sayin’ we want different things?’

He Tian looks like he’s holding in a breath. ‘Guan Shan, listen—’

Footsteps cut his words off short, and they both turn to see a dark figure crossing the bridge to the gazebo, tall and well-built beneath a black overcoat. As he approaches, Guan Shan sees lines above He Cheng’s brows and around his mouth that he doesn’t remember being there, and thinks He Cheng might have gained a little weight under the bulk of lean muscle, which still does nothing to soften him.

‘Are you ready?’ He Cheng asks his brother, filling the archway of the gazebo, ducking his head beneath the frame. ‘I’ve run the checks. Planned departure in ten minutes.’

‘Yeah,’ says He Tian, looking annoyed. ‘I just need to grab my bag from the house.’

‘I’ve already loaded it.’

He Tian mutters something under his breath, and He Cheng slides his gaze to Guan Shan’s. If He Cheng’s surprised by his being here, he doesn’t show it, but there aren’t many expressions other than displeasure that He Cheng wears so openly. The man inclines his head slightly. 

‘It’s been a while,’ He Cheng says. ‘He Tian mentioned he was working with you.’

Guan Shan’s lip curls slightly. ‘Not sure about that,’ he says. ‘Your brother seems to be doin’ everythin’ but workin’ with me.’

He Cheng lifts a brow. ‘Is that a surprise?’

Guan Shan doesn’t grace that with an answer; he’s used to the two of them chipping at each other through him, using him as a segue for filial spite. Instead, he says, ‘I’m sorry for your loss. He Tian told me about your father.’

He Cheng nods. ‘Likewise.’

_Fuck you._

Guan Shan turns to He Tian, who’s grimacing slightly. It’s no surprise: nothing like being in the dead dads club to make a conversation flow. Nothing like receiving consolations from the family that probably killed Guan Shan’s in the first place.

‘I’ll wait by the launch,’ says He Cheng, sensing the change in atmosphere. Like they’re still children, he adds, ‘Don’t be long.’

_No fighting or fucking._

They wait for him to disappear back in the house before Guan Shan says, ‘Why did you tell him?’

He Tian rubs at his eye. ‘He already knew, Guan Shan. He kept tabs on all of Father’s business partners.’

‘So he could strike out the competition when they died?’

‘No,’ He Tian says, and then, tiredly, ‘I don’t know. I’m not going through this with you again. It’s already done enough damage.’

Damage to them, damage to Guan Shan, damage to the He’s reputation. Which one does He Tian value more? It’s a question Guan Shan’s never going to get an answer to, but in some way he knows that He Tian’s right. His dad’s incarceration was like the spread of knotweed, wrecking and strangling anything around it. A seed that would never grow, the bounty spoiling just before the harvest. It marked Guan Shan and He Tian with a black spot that brought them consistently closer to killing each other.

‘I have to go,’ says He Tian, looking at his watch. ‘You coming or not?’

Guan Shan rolls his eyes. ‘I’m not sittin’ in a car with you and your fuckin’ brother for two days.’

‘Car?’ He Tian asks, bemused. Something glitters in his eyes, oil-black. ‘Who said anything about taking the car?’

* * *

He glances forward at the closed door where He Cheng fills the pilot’s seat, then winces at the view through the windscreen: a too-close sky and the ground slipping away at ninety-degree angle. 

‘He Cheng was flying to Beijing,’ He Tian tells him. ‘It made sense to hitch a ride. He’ll drive the rest of the way from Tianjin.’

‘What about the Tesla?’ Guan Shan asks tightly. He grips the arms of his seat tightly as the wheels lift from the ground of the He’s private runway. The runway, Guan Shan has decided, is far too fucking short for comfort.

‘I’ll have someone bring it up in the week,’ He Tian says calmly from the seat beside him, their shoulders touching. He leans his head back as the jet propels itself into the air, engines loud, a stack of papers in his lap. ‘Or leave it there for a while. I don’t have any personal business planned and I’ve got the work car in Tianjin.’

Guan Shan nods stiffly. It does make sense, but his stomach is somersaulting into his throat and a headache stabs him between the eyes from the shift in pressure. 

There’s a paper bag folded neatly on the table next to him, a bottle of spring water sloshing as the jet lifts its nose into the air and adjusts its course northwards. It takes fifteen minutes of silence to hit the right altitude, and then the whir of the engines peters out to a dull hum, the jet dipping slightly. Guan Shan’s fingernails dig claw-like into the armrests, and he breathes out a gust of air when the seatbelt sign switches off.

‘Are you going to throw up?’ He Tian asks. He gestures a finger at the paper bag. ‘I prepared a few things, after last time.’

Guan Shan scowls, but swallows back the taste of acid in his throat. ‘You mean you’re not gonna offer me your duffel bag again?’

‘We’ll try the paper bag first, yeah?’ He Tian says, amused. ‘Anything’s better than He Cheng’s upholstery.’ 

Guan Shan sniffs, holding back a smile. He remembers the scandalised disgust on He Cheng’s face when He Tian had climbed out from the pilot’s seat after an hour’s trip from Guangzhou to Nanning,, He Tian choking back laughter while carrying a duffel bag seeping with vomit and spoiled shirts. Guan Shan had slept for a day after, stress and adrenaline ruining him, jolting awake from nightmares of exploding fuel tanks and oceans rising up to meet him.

He Tian had just passed his pilot’s exams, and Guan Shan hadn’t long been rejected by the academy. He should’ve been happy for He Tian—he _had _been happy for him, but rejection and self-loathing was a difficult drink to swallow, and his mood had been sour. The plane trip was He Tian’s consolation—a rich compensation and nauseating comfort that He Tian didn’t know another way to give. Guan Shan had spent it emptying the contents of his stomach while He Tian had held on to the steering wheel, white-knuckled.

‘Just use my bag,’ he’d said, words gritty as his gaze darted between Guan Shan’s ashen face and the plane’s readings. ‘He Cheng will kill me if you throw up on the carpet.’

‘Your uniform,’ Guan Shan groaned. ‘There’s all your BDU shit in there.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ He Tian said. ‘I can replace it.’ He’d shaken his head while Guan Shan retched, and clicked his tongue. ‘Can’t believe you’ve never been in a fucking plane before.’

Lips trembling, acid and bile coating his lips, Guan Shan said, ‘Believe it, asshole. Never been in a fuckin’ private jet before, either.’

Something about it had tickled He Tian, made him laugh all the way down to landing, and Guan Shan wished he’d been cognisant enough to remember it—to pull out his phone and record it when memory failed. He wanted to memorise He Tian’s deep-belly, back-throated laughter that poured richly and loudly over the sound of the engine, the affection in it contagious, all the way down.

Guan Shan ignores the paper bag now. The jet doesn’t seem to shake the way it did then, but maybe his stomach has hardened, nerves grown a steel-lining. He looks instead out at the landscape growing grey and hazy beneath him, fat drops of rain running in quick, sharp lines against the waxed windows. Greens fade into the muted white and greys of clouds, and if Guan Shan squints he can make out the capped peaks of the Wugong Mountains that eventually disappear entirely. 

He knows He Tian is watching him, long glances that stray from the thick pile of documents he’s working through, the writing foreign and characters not-quite Latin. Malay, maybe? Vietnamese? Guan Shan doesn’t spend long trying to figure it out. He should pull out his own laptop and work on the case board he’s been building over the last couple of weeks, but his stomach is gathered in so many knots he’s not sure he can focus on anything but the slanting sky and blue brightness that flashes into existence above the clouds.

‘If you want to hold my hand,’ He Tian says pleasantly, ‘all you’ve got to do is ask.’

Guan Shan pulls a face at the offered hand, palm outstretched, once-familiar lines etched into the warm skin. If he tried, could he find his way along them now?

‘Fuck off,’ he mutters. ‘I’m not a kid.’

‘I know you don’t like this.’ He Tian shakes his hand. _Go on. Take it._

‘There’s a lotta shit I don’t like that I’ve gotta do.’

He Tian rolls his eyes. ‘You didn’t _have _to get on. There are other ways you could’ve gone back to Tianjin without looking like you’re going to shit yourself every time we hit a cloud.’ When Guan Shan sodesn’t laugh, he says, ‘I would’ve given you my car. Bought you a train ticket.’

Guan Shan huffs a bleak laugh, and a wave of nausea rolls through him. ‘Thanks for always remindin’ me I’m a charity case, He Tian.’

‘Stop being so fucking sour.’ He Tian’s eyes, now darkened, flash to the pilot’s cabin and back. ‘I swear you never liked anything I did for you. For us.’

‘Yeah,’ says Guan Shan, twisting a little in his seat. ‘’Cause it was always for you.’

He Tian’s open palm closes into a fist. He puts the papers down. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You. Your fuckin’ obsession with pleasin’ people and havin’ them like you.’

‘That’s bullshit—’

‘It was true in school. It’s true now.’

‘You think I never did anything because I just _cared_?’

‘You want everyone to be your _friend _so you can feel better about your own fuckin’ loneliness and the fact that you’re a sadistic piece of shit.’

‘Hey—’

‘Not gettin’ enough hugs and fuckin’ kisses from your _baba_ doesn’t mean you can try and get it out from me. I’m not a fuckin’ vendin’ machine for your self-validation.’

He Tian stares at him, realisation dawning, mouth turned cruel and eyes heavy. ‘You want to talk about _my _daddy issues, sweetheart?’ He drops his voice, just audible over the sound of the engine, just for Guan Shan’s ears. ‘At least mine weren’t built on a foundation of trying to make everyone hate me to confirm my own fucking guilt and self-loathing. Is that what you want to hear? That your dad didn’t get locked up, he just couldn’t fucking _stand_ being around you?’

Guan Shan glowers. ‘I don’t blame myself for jack _shit_. I blame—_Fuck!’_

The plane hitches, Guan Shan’s head slammed against the window. There’s a shriek of metal and something ungodly that shoves Guan Shan’s heart into his mouth and his body half-way out of his seat. He Tian’s body is flung into his own—the papers he’d been working through shoot from his table, a scattered mess in the aisle. 

‘The fuck is going on!’ He Tian shouts, sounding breathless.

_We’re gonna die, _Guan Shan thinks, scrambling for purchase, for something to hold on to. Sunlight bursts through the windows as the plane veers. _They’re gonna fucking kill me, too._

Another jolt and Guan Shan’s shoulder lurches back into He Tian, the contact sending a juddering pain through his arm and clavicle that makes him hiss through clenched teeth. Gas masks have dropped from above them; a warning light blinks along the aisle.

‘He Cheng!’ He Tian shouts, fingers fumbling as he unbuckles his seatbelt, moving as if to climb out his seat. Guan Shan lurches forward to grab him. Another swerve of the jet and He Tian could crack his head open on an armrest.

‘_Don’t!_’ he starts, and then stills as something flashes across the windows. A predatory shadow slipping over them like a cloud cutting across the moon, and Guan Shan’s lungs ache with a held breath while it passes—

And then the jet levels out.

The too-bright light has faded, pressure levels returning to normal, and there’s no longer a tugging sensation that propels Guan Shan against the wall. Are they safe? Has He Cheng been playing some kind of game?

He’s painfully aware of the blood pumping too-fast through his arteries, pulse-points throbbing, veins raised and swollen to blue rivers on the backs of his hands—one of which has found He Tian’s.

‘We’re okay,’ He Cheng says over the plane’s intercom system, voice grim. ‘Someone at the ATC messed up a coordinate. Nearly hit a Learjet. We’re okay.’

Guan Shan closes his eyes. He’s faintly aware of the movement of He Tian’s thumb brushing along the back of his hand, over-sensitised, fingers locked tight enough to fracture a bone. Their joined hands that had reached for each other’s through the fear at a point Guan Shan can’t recollect.

‘So fucking stubborn,’ He Tian murmurs.

_An accident, _Guan Shan’s mind is saying breathlessly. _It was only an accident. _

He Tian’s words from minutes ago play back at him, the viciousness in them surprising him, but then he hears his own words too, bitter and goading, something in him prodded like skin taunted with an iron poker. Fighting for the sake of it, old habits refusing to die.

A minute passes. Guan Shan breathes out slowly.

‘Shouldn’t’ve said what I said,’ he mutters quietly. He doesn’t look at their hands, fingers intertwined, the look of them once so mesmerising: He Tian’s long fingers, wide palms, manicured nails, holding onto Guan Shan’s like an anchor. 

He Tian squeezes back, tight. ‘You bring out the worst in me. Hard fucking work.’

_Hard to love. Hard to like. _

‘Me or us?’ Guan Shan asks bitterly. Their knuckles have gone white, Guan Shan’s wrist starting to tingle.

‘Me,’ He Tian says, surprising him. ‘Trying to figure out what to say. I never say the right things back. I never say what you want to hear.’

‘What do I wanna hear?’

‘You tell me, Guan Shan,’ He Tian says, bemused. ‘I’d fucking love to know.’

* * *

They step off the plane at noon, moving quickly through customs at TSN airport. He Cheng spends a few minutes signing papers at the private terminal and paying the landing and holding fees, and Guan Shan ducks outside for a cigarette in the meantime, smoke chasing out the nausea in his throat and the tangy adrenaline that still sits on his tongue. 

The cold is a slap in the face as the doors slide open, Tianjin’s wintry air greeting him like a bitter lover; the sharp wind makes him shake, fingers gripping the cigarette tightly, and he tugs his jacket tighter around him as he slips back into the terminal. There’s a car waiting for He Cheng to go north to Beijing, and He Tian is ready to book a Grab when Guan Shan pulls him to one side. 

‘What was that?’ he asks. ‘On the jet.’

He catches He Tian’s nose wrinkling at the smell of cigarettes, and then He Tian shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. He Cheng’s going to put in some calls. That shouldn’t have happened.’

‘You said your father got shot…’

‘You know there's always been a target on us. If someone’s managed to cut off the head, it means we’re next.’

‘Are you safe?’ Guan Shan asks, the question feeling ridiculous. ‘Aren’t you fuckin’ scared?’

He Tian’s smile is wry. ‘Father’s protection isn’t the only thing that kept us alive.’

‘He protected you, but didn’t give a shit if you died?’

‘You wouldn’t understand, Guan Shan.’

Guan Shan smarts at the words, but then stops himself. It isn’t an insult; it’s a fact for which Guan Shan should be grateful. When it comes to the He’s—their world, their lives—maybe he’s better off not understanding. 

‘Look, I’m getting the train home,’ he says, jerking a thumb to the sign overhead for the airport’s links to public transport. ‘Tell your brother I said thanks for the ride?’

He Tian looks at him for a minute, then shakes his head, amused. ‘I don’t know anyone else who’d step off a private jet and get on the fucking subway into town.’

Guan Shan doesn’t care if He Tian laughs; he wants the screech of subway tracks and the plain looks of exhaustion on strangers’ faces. He wants the grimness of it, greased handlebars and the full feelings of his lungs inhaling-exhaling. No well-stocked minibars and cream leather interiors, or the world slipping out from beneath him.

‘I’ll come with you,’ He Tian says, sliding his phone back into his pocket. ‘I’ve still got a metro card somewhere.’

Guan Shan looks him up and down. ‘Gonna get on the metro like a peasant?’

He Tian rolls his eyes. ‘I rode it every day for school.’

‘Yeah, why was that?’ Guan Shan asks, sneering slightly. ‘Character buildin’?’

‘Nope.’ Unembarrassed, He Tian says, ‘It meant I got to spend another hour with you every day. Weekends were fucking painful.’

Guan Shan fights the pink stain that spreads across his cheeks, but it’s a persistent thing that washes through anyway, despite his efforts. Twenty-seven, and he still wears a blush when He Tian talks like that, his feelings open and bare, striking Guan Shan into a burning, stoney-faced silence. 

‘Fine,’ he mutters. ‘You can come with. But I’m not invitin’ you back to mine.’

‘That’s alright,’ says He Tian cheerfully, clapping Guan Shan around the shoulders. ‘I don’t put out on a first date.’

* * *

It takes an hour to get back into the city, the metro slowly filling as they push through to the financial districts and metropolitan areas, shift-workers and school kids in uniform riding the yellow line west. They sit shoulder-to-shoulder until the carriage grows crowded, eventually giving up their seats for a group of seventy-somethings with their bags full of discounted market fare, and He Tian presses Guan Shan into a corner near the doors with their overnight bags nestled between their feet. Guan Shan stares determinedly over He Tian’s shoulder, his jaw squared.

‘Starting to feel like I’m in highschool again,’ He Tian muses, and winks. ‘Pressing against you in a crowd.’

The image flashes in Guan Shan’s head—stupid, teenage antics, He Tian’s body hiding the hardness between Guan Shan’s thighs and his shoulder bearing Guan Shan’s hot breath as they pressed in close, took a risk, messed about for the heady thrill of it, still in their uniforms. Shirts stained with summer-sweat, He Tian’s expensive cologne stinging Guan Shan’s nose, their movements jerky and desperate. Stupid fucking kids.

‘Stop it,’ Guan Shan mutters. ‘I’m not playin’.’ He knows why He Tian is here: no one would expect He Tian to ride the subway through the city. Any tail on him will be lost for a few hours. 

He Tian makes a _hm _sound. ‘Your problem is that you think I always am.’

The carriage rocks slightly, and Guan Shan flattens his hand against the door behind him to keep himself steadied. An automated voice announces the next station over the loudspeaker, and Guan Shan swallows hard. Three more stops.

‘Where d’you live, anyway?’ he asks. ‘You stayin’ with that woman you work with?’

He Tian snorts. ‘Fuck, no. I’ve got a place in Liulin. One bed, small kitchen. Not that I cook.’

‘You never fuckin’ could.’ Guan Shan remembers acrid stew, burnt onions on his tongue and beef tough enough to make his molars ache. 

‘You could come over,’ says He Tian. ‘Help me change that.’

Guan Shan shakes his head. ‘I tried for too many years. You weren’t changin’ for nothin’.’

‘Wasn’t for lack of trying,’ He Tian says evenly. ‘Or because I didn’t want to. I just—’

‘Couldn’t.’

The train shudders to a stop, doors sliding open. Two more stations. What does He Tian want him to say? That he’s willing to try again? That it doesn’t matter that He Tian walked out, back turned, slipped out silently in the night? That this time will be different?

‘Right,’ says He Tian. He clears his throat as the train hitches into motion again. ‘So what’s your plan with the case now?’

Guan Shan considers him shrewdly. ‘I have some leads to follow up on.’

‘Remember what I said—’

‘Bein’ _thorough_ in my job isn’t _wastin’_ my time, He Tian,’ Guan Shan tells him sharply. ‘Trustin’ your say-so is the last mistake I’m gonna make with this case.’ 

‘Fine,’ He Tian says, miraculously letting it lie. Guan Shan regards him suspiciously until he says, ‘Would you still consider grabbing lunch this week?’

The train veers sideways, and He Tian plants his hand above Guan Shan’s head for balance, head bowed to steer clear of the hand rails. He’s taller than anyone in the carriage, his body crowding Guan Shan’s in. Guan Shan’s stopped wondering if his body language is an effort to protect or intimidate through sheer size. 

Guan Shan’s tongue moves thickly. ‘I’m not discussin’ shit with you anymore.’

‘It doesn’t have to be about work,’ He Tian says simply. His eyes drop down to meet Guan Shan’s. ‘We can have our moments, can’t we? As friends? I don’t think this weekend was a total failure.’

Guan Shan considers him. He remembers the feeling of He Tian’s hand in his own, the bone-breaking pressure of it like a life-line. Remembers words unsaid the night they stopped over in Wuhan, an unhinging, a door being nudged open with a boot. Pried open with a crowbar. 

‘If this is about tryin’ to get into my good graces for the case—’

‘It’s not,’ says He Tian. ‘I’m not that fucking exploitative.’

_You are, and we both know it. You know I don’t trust you._

‘Friends,’ Guan Shan says, nudging the word around his mouth like loose teeth. ‘You wanna try that again? Me and you?’

A smile begins to unfurl. ‘I’m not making promises, but…’

‘What happens when you get called away again?’ Guan Shan prompts. ‘Some dead minister in Shanghai starts takin’ up all your time?’

‘You know I’m adept at multitasking,’ He Tian says with a wink. Another stop—one more to go. ‘But I think a friendship can stay the distance, don’t you? I’m not talking about anything more than that.’

There are alarms going off somewhere, something heavy sitting under Guan Shan’s tongue. A warning. For a moment, it feels like there are a hundred pairs of eyes on him, every body in the carriage turned in his direction, waiting for him to say no. To push _this _away. 

‘What are you doin’?’ he asks He Tian quietly. ‘What happened to bein’ better off without each other? You left.’

‘We run in the same circles, Guan Shan. Something keeps pulling us back. Do you think we’re going to get through this without each other?’ When Guan Shan doesn’t answer, he says, ‘When we didn’t fight—I don’t think either of us had ever been happier. I want to not fight with you.’

Guan Shan bites the inside of his cheek. ‘You don’t think it would be easier to just—not be around each other at all?’

It’s a sensible question, one he asked himself a thousand times and never wanted to answer. Eventually, they both knew it well. They’d answered it in their heads, fought until that’s all they were telling each other anymore. The thing was: it wasn’t working, and it hadn’t for a while. Doesn’t it tell them something now that it’s death and a job that has tugged them back into one another’s orbit? Wasn’t Guan Shan happy in those five years, content with his own solitude and a life without _him_? 

The train stops. Guan Shan’s station gets called over the speakers, and the doors slide open. 

‘Thought you would get it by now,’ says He Tian. He steps to one side, letting Guan Shan leave, but the movement is reluctant and slow, and He Tian lets his hand drop only at the last moment. ‘_Not_ being around you is the hardest fucking thing of it all.’

Guan Shan steps back onto the platform, people rushing around them. ‘That sounds like a weakness.’

He Tian smiles. ‘Worst one of them all.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please consider supporting me if you liked this work - you can find out how via my [Tumblr](agapaic.tumblr.com)!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Viki - thank you so much for your endless support. It means the world. My sincere thanks also go to Nelli for proofreading this chapter for me! I hope you and your loved ones are all doing well since this fic was last updated!

Guan Shan drives to Beijing two days later. A new bout of snow falls the day he comes back from Guangzhou, and now the streets are icy but clear, his tyres crunching on grit and salt, lumps of snow sliding from tree boughs and melting across his windscreen. The drive is otherwise quiet, most people from the cities still at their _laojia _for New Year’s celebrations, and is interrupted only by Fan Li’s call. 

‘Just checking in,’ she says. ‘Things seemed bad last week.’

‘Happy New Year to you too,’ Guan Shan says dryly. 

‘Oh shit, was it New Year’s?’

Guan Shan snorts. ‘How’d you spend it?’

‘Not far from my desk,’ she admits. ‘Seems no one could stop fucking up for one day without needing my advice.’

‘They know you need the money.’

She laughs at this—hard. Even the discounted fees she gives him for consultancy make his eyes water, but being one of the best in North China doesn’t come cheap. He’s looked her up on the census through the Statistics Bureau, knows where she lives and that she bought her apartment for 50 million yuan not far from Xiaoyun Road. Her time is money, and a lot of it.

‘Did you fly back to Guangzhou for New Year’s?’ she asks him.

Guan Shan hesitates, fingers tightening the wheel. ‘The contact I told you about—he offered me a lift.’

Fan Li’s pause is loud on the end of the line. ‘How did you say you knew him again?’

‘School.’ Guan Shan bites his lip, weighs the consequences, takes the risk. ‘We were, uh, together for a while.’

An even longer pause, until eventually, ‘Wait,’ she says, prickly. ‘I’ve been your lawyer for three fucking years and you kept _that _from me?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Of course it doesn’t. I’ve handled clients with far more complex personal lives.’

‘Are you sayin’ I’m simple?’

‘Don’t make me regret being grateful that you are.’

His lips twitch with humour. She’s right. He’d rather be simple than anything else; rearing from smoke and mirrors and convolution, shying from He Tian’s fondness for ruse and willful deception. 

_Just be fuckin’ straight with me, _he remembers saying. _You wanna be with me or not?_

He can’t remember now if he’d gotten an answer.

‘Spending time with an old lover,’ Fan Li says next, a strange tone to her voice, built on something wistful and cautious. ‘Are the two of you friends now, or… spending time together?’

‘Both, I guess,’ Guan Shan replies. ‘It’s complicated.’ 

‘Isn’t it always?’

Guan Shan chuckles. ‘Are you gonna start givin’ me relationship advice?’

‘Ha!’ she crows. He hears the creak of leather, pictures her spinning, amused, in her desk chair. ‘I don’t need the money that badly, Mo Guan Shan.’

‘Above your salary?’

‘Way above it. I’d need a license to drink on the job if I was in that business.’

Guan Shan imagines it: Fan Li, the lawyer, the matchmaker and agony aunt. _Well, Yuqing, you could murder your husband but that would be killing with intent and the Penalty Law would apply. Have you thought about couple’s therapy?_

‘You don’t already?’ he asks her. ‘Sometimes I get through half a bottle of _mijiu_ a night.’ It’s a lie—he drinks cheap _baijiu_, and the whole bottle, but she doesn’t need to know that.

‘The joys of being self-employed,’ Fan Li jokes. ‘Unmonitored alcoholism.’

‘That’s—’ Guan Shan bites his tongue, feels his face twisting sourly. A blink of shame fizzles across his skin like the spitting ash of a bonfire. He presses his tongue behind his teeth. ‘I gotta go. I’m nearly in Beijing.’

‘Business or pleasure?’ she encourages, sounding hopeful.

His smile is pinched. ‘Bye, Fan Li.’

***

Jian Yi is nursing a hangover when Guan Shan pulls on to his driveway, government offices still closed for a few days, the hallway bearing the remnants of a New Year’s Eve party: boxed decorations, an empty stack of bottles and cans for recycling, a stick of ylang ylang incense on the hallway console to wash away the smell of sweat and alcohol-soaked pores. 

The house looks different in daylight—less ornate, less expensive, and the pit Guan Shan is used to feeling in his stomach is smaller. The air is colder an hour north, but the blue skies help the sun to shine down warmly through the windows, and Jian Yi hands him a mug of something hot and redolent of cinnamon as they walk into the kitchen. There’s a laptop open on the island counter, and Guan Shan catches a glimpse of the words ‘CYL Awards Ceremony’ before Jian Yi prods the lid shut with his forefinger.

‘Apologies for my appearance,’ he says, moving towards the coffee machine on the side counter. ‘Still a little sensitive after the past few days. A real _bacchanalia_, you know?’

‘Politicians letting loose?’

Jian Yi’s nose wrinkles. ‘I wouldn’t spend a _minute_ with those fucking bores at New Year’s, no matter how much I’ve been drinking.’

Guan Shan eyes the mussed hair pooling down Jian Yi’s back, the silk robe tied in a double knot at his hip, and shakes his head. ‘You always walk around like that?’

‘Does it bother you?’

‘Not me.’ Guan Shan sips his drink—cappuccino, soy. Fresh vanilla? He sets the mug on the island. ‘Thinkin’ more about the guy you’ve got standin’ in your hallway.’

‘Chen Guyu?’ Jian Yi swipes a fresh mug from a wooden stand and settles it against his coffee machine, before pressing a button that sets it to whir and steam. ‘He doesn’t care. In fact, He Tian explicitly told me that Guyu was paid _not _to care so long as I stay living and breathing.’

Guan Shan glances back down the hallway, where a man the size of a small car fills the doorway. An earpiece is laced around the back of his ear and clipped into the lapel of his grey suit, and Guan Shan couldn’t help but glimpse at the tattoo dipping beneath Chen Guyu’s shirt collar and the burns on his dinner-plate hands as he stepped through the door. Ex-army? Triad? When He Tian assured that he knew some people who could guard Jian Yi and his home, Guan Shan supposes he should have expected this.

‘You make him stand there?’ 

Jian Yi shrugs. ‘He has full run of the house, but I guess he likes it there.’

Guan Shan frowns. ‘He’s not a dog.’

‘Correct! He’s a hired gun.’

‘You say that like it’s worse,’ Guan Shan says. ‘Your family—’

‘Gave me first hand experience of that,’ Jian Yi finishes. ‘Whoever thought they’d have a disarmament-supporting pacifist for a kid?’ The coffee machine splutters, and Guan Shan watches as he scoops three—four spoonfuls of white sugar into the mug, before adding a splash of soy milk. Steam still curls from the coffee, but he swallows a mouthful anyway, smacking his lips together in satisfaction. 

‘You should eat congee,’ Guan Shan tells him. ‘Not all this _guizi _shit.’

‘You’d be a terrible diplomat,’ Jian Yi remarks, waving him off. ‘What I _need _is an IV.’ 

‘Get those often, do you?’

Jian Yi gives him a look, but then comes around to settle on the stool beside him, a flash of pale, virtually hairless thigh revealing itself for a moment, before Jian Yi tugs his robe back in place with a grin. Guan Shan pretends not to notice.

‘You didn’t come for small talk. I’m guessing you’re still running around for my mother?’

‘I’m not doin’ this for your mother.’

‘Then who, exactly?’

‘She’s payin’ well.’

‘Uh huh,’ Jian Yi remarks, unconvinced. He gestures to the fridge. ‘Have you eaten? You look hungry.’

_You look thin, _Jian Yi means. A weekend of his mother’s cooking and Guan Shan knows it hasn’t filled him out in the places he’s wasting, but he shakes his head. ‘I’m not here for breakfast.’

‘I figured as much. You sounded worried on the phone.’

_Worried? _Guan Shan brushes it off, and cuts to the chase. ‘Was He Tian around when you had the accidents? I mean, the attempts?’

‘Uh, He Tian?’ Jian Yi squints, thrown off by the question. ‘Yeah, I mean—Yeah, he checked in with me. Look, you don’t need to apologise for not coming to see me back then, it’s—’

‘I’m not apologisin’. That’s not what I’m here for.’

‘Oh.’ Jian Yi sits upright. ‘Glad I didn’t feed you breakfast now, you apathetic bastard.’

‘I don’t mean—’

‘Kidding,’ Jian Yi teases. ‘I know you’ve been dealing with shit. You’ve had your own life down in Tianjin. Always thought you’d reach out when you were ready, I guess.’

‘And if I didn’t?’

‘Then maybe…’ Jian Yi shrugs. ‘Aw, I dunno, Guan Shan. I wasn’t going to feel guilty for not taking the first step. We’re big boys now, aren’t we?’

‘You mean now we’re not adults pretendin’ to be kids anymore.’

Jian Yi waves a hand back and forth, dismissive. _Tom-a-to, tom-ah-to. _Guan Shan knows it doesn’t mean he’s forgotten, or doesn’t care. He’s buried his childhood deep, brushes it off now with a trained ignorance that would fool most people.

‘Did He Tian check in with you before the attempts—or just after?’

Jian Yi considers him, his smile careful and calculated. ‘What exactly are you getting at, Guan Shan?’

‘Maybe nothin’.’ Guan Shan wraps his hands around his mug, stealing warmth. ‘Are you gonna tell me?’

‘I think that depends,’ says Jian Yi. ‘Is this a business or personal call? Because I’m not getting in the middle of your shit.’ He shakes his head. ‘I _knew _this would happen if he started swimming circles around you again. Fucking shark, I _knew _it.’

‘What do you mean, you knew?’

Jian Yi stares him straight-on. ‘Please,’ he says. ‘Don’t act like you don’t. Who do you think sat on the outskirts of _that _for however many fucking years?’

‘That bein’ our relationship?’ Jian Yi only looks at him. ‘This is business,’ Guan Shan says. ‘There’s some things that don’t add up.’

‘About He Tian? Why don’t you ask him yourself? He’s… he’s whatever he is, but he wouldn’t lie to you.’

‘He would if he thought he was protectin’ me.’

Jian Yi’s face goes sour. He’s never liked this—going behind each other’s backs, whether the intentions are good or not. It’s a kind of deceit that cuts him, but the kind that he’s carried out too many times himself. How many smiles has he worn in the face of Zhan Zhengxi’s concern? How many flippant remarks has he made to distract others from the truth that he’s _scared?_ His sunny disposition—built to deceive.

‘He Tian was around,’ Jian Yi admits eventually. ‘But he was like that, turning up randomly every couple of months. No calls, no texts for months, sometimes a whole year and then—right on your doorstep.’ With a playful roll of his eyes: ‘Most unreliable booty call _ever_.’

Guan Shan knows what that’s like. Five years of radio silence, and his old lover standing in his study. 

He presses further: ‘Talk me through the timeline of He Tian bein’ around.’

Jian Yi sighs. ‘He turned up… maybe a week before the first one?’ He scratches his jaw, nails on unshaved stubble making a _scritch-scritch _sound that grates. ‘He left a few days after, then came back to check in just before the second attempt.’ He pulls a face, understands what this sounds like. ‘Look, I don’t know what you think he’s done, but you’re wrong. You know him better than anyone, Guan Shan. You know what that asshole would do and what he wouldn’t.’

‘We haven’t been together for a long time,’ Guan Shan reminds him. ‘I dunno who he could’ve become.’

‘You think he’s capable of amicicide? _Fratricide_? Seriously?’

Guan Shan looks away. _We can have our moments, can’t we? As friends? _He pushes He Tian’s voice away, the warmth it had held.

‘I’m listenin’ to my instincts,’ he mutters. 

‘And what instincts are those?’ Jian Yi counters, a little harsh. ‘The ones that want to get back at him for hurting you? Or the ones that know when a lead is worth following, and when it isn’t?’

Guan Shan knows where Jian Yi’s loyalties lie, where they always have done. It’s not unfair, the He’s and Jian’s linked by blood and bone and something Guan Shan’s lineage hasn’t been party to, but it stings with bitterness all the same. 

‘If He Tian wanted me dead,’ Jian Yi says, with an air of finality. ‘You can bet I’d have been rotting in my grave for a while now.’

_Drop it, _Jian Yi is saying. _I’m not indulging this hunch. _

Guan Shan drops it. 

‘Fine. But there’s somethin’ else I’ve been meanin’ to talk to you about.’ He pulls open a document on his phone and hands it over. ‘You were at a gala last year. You recognise any of the names in bold?’

Jian Yi takes his time with it, scrolling through slowly. ‘This is CPC data,’ he says carefully. ‘How did you even…’ He trails off, and sighs. He’s answered his own question. ‘That woman—she’s fucking unbelievable.’

‘I guess she’ll do what she has to do for you.’ Guan Shan gestures towards his phone, still gripped in Jian Yi’s hands. ‘Anythin’?’

Jian Yi lifts his shoulders, a ridge nestled between his brows. ‘Maybe? Not really. There were a lot of people there, and I spoke to the people I needed to. No one mingles at those kinds of things unless it’s in their favour.’ He hands the phone back. ‘Should I know them?’

‘They’re all the politicians that have died since the gala.’

Jian Yi doesn’t look shocked; he processes the information with a slow, understanding nod. Guan Shan watches him while he swallows hard, realising that his name could have been emboldened on that list, too. 

‘Fan Xuemei,’ Jian Yi says. ‘She was the one in Hebin, wasn’t she? I thought I recognised it.’

‘They ruled it as a suicide.’

‘Which I’m guessing wasn’t quite true.’

Guan Shan nods. ‘Did you know her? Anythin’ about her position in the CPC? Was she radical? Wrapped up in some kinda big scandal?’

Jian Yi grimaces. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘You said you’re interested in disarmament. Peace.’

‘The words of a very hungover, very _stupid _civil servant of this great republic of the people.’ Jian Yi’s eyes are narrowed. ‘Even if—_theoretically_—I did have that agenda, I have no idea if the victims do, too. Like I said…’

‘Too many people, too many priorities,’ Guan Shan surmises, feeling tired already. He adds blithely, ‘Maybe that’s what ties you all together.’ 

Jian Yi shrugs, eases back. ‘We’re the next generation. Everyone invited to that gala has an opportunity to be at the top, and not everyone’s going to get it.’ With his bright eyes smiling, he adds, ‘It’s a piss poor state of affairs.’

Something in his words stick at Guan Shan, but he doesn’t know what. Instead, he feels a layer of defeat pressing down on him. Two weeks, and what does he know? That the coroners reports have been falsified; that He Tian was near Jian Yi before his attacks and Han Xianlan before her death, and maybe others’; that the police have been bought and are interfering with evidence. Are the CPC killing their own, or has someone—some group—tipped off the public services? 

Guan Shan checks his watch. It’s nearly eleven, and he has a meeting in the city in an hour. Traffic on a Saturday will be bad, and his stomach is twisting with a hunger that he forgets about routinely. He’d stared at himself in the mirror the night before, prodded at the skin stretched across his rib bones, peered at the ropey muscles of his biceps. 

His body’s different now; he stopped playing ball a few years ago, picked up a tentative interest in running that had thinned out his legs and made his knees look too big, thighs and lungs getting used to the burn of a long sprint through the city. There are scars across his hands, his legs—small white nicks that have cut pieces of him out while he chased suspects and ran from the flash of knives and guns, walls climbed, cars dodged, skin sliced on smashed glass. 

_Friends, _He Tian had said. And if it happened to be more than that—turned into late-night fucks and furtive hands moving in a bathroom stall the way, at first, it used to—would He Tian still look at his body and see something he wanted? 

Guan Shan grits his teeth. ‘I gotta go,’ he says, getting to his feet. ‘Call me if anythin’ comes to mind, or if somethin’ happens.’

Jian Yi salutes him and follows him out to the hallway. ‘Don’t worry.’ Jian Yi pats Chen Guyu on the shoulders, standing in front of the door, the man’s expression dour. ‘Not much gets through this one. Right, tough guy?’

***

Han Xianlan’s husband moved to Beijing two months after his wife left. They had no children, had come to the end of their lease, and Mr Lu Wei Ming’s contract with Chalieco resulted in an easy transfer north. What else could the engineering firm do for a grieving widower but help him move on? Wei Ming files his own taxes, and registers as a self-employed company at the State Tax Authority. By default, his company details are published on the STA’s website—telephone, email, address—and Guan Shan simply had to put in a call. 

Wei Ming agreed to a meeting in public, a bubble tea chain in the financial district, and it doesn’t take long for Guan Shan to find him between the bright walls and pastel-toned tables. He stands when Guan Shan approaches, his crisp shirt and Levi’s a little loose, facial hair around his jaw making him unkempt in one moment, and well-clipped in the next. He’s shorter than Guan Shan, but he smiles when Guan Shan does not, a slick thing that makes Guan Shan think Wei Ming’s been waiting for a meeting like this for a while. 

‘Has anyone else been in touch with you since her death?’ Guan Shan asks when he returns with their drinks. Wei Ming sips at a Thai milk tea, artificially orange and sugary-sweet, hand shaking slightly. ‘Government or otherwise?’

‘A few,’ Wei Ming replies, his voice gravelly with too many cigarettes. ‘Had to sign off on forms. Insurance, release papers. Someone came round to take her work phone and laptop, not that I gave a shit. It was all government property.’ Wei Ming squints at him. ‘I thought you’d be older.’

Guan Shan hesitates. ‘So no one… like me has been in touch?’

‘I dunno what else anyone would want from me after the accident, Mr Mo.’

_The accident._

Guan Shan considers the man. He doesn’t share the same kind of reserved hesitancy that Fan Xuemei’s sister had held, bitter and suspicious. Li Wei Ming talks like he knows there was something more to his wife’s death—and he’s content with it. 

‘Did you know why Han Xianlan didn’t have another EpiPen? Thirty-seven years is a long time to keep up with your medications and then just—forget.’

‘I don’t know. She carried one everywhere with her. When we went on hiking trips she carried two. It was almost—almost like she planned it.’ Wei Ming shifts and says, ‘I told the police all of this. If I’m not under investigation, I don’t think it’s my responsibility to go through it all again.’ He lifts his brows. ‘Am I? A suspect?’

‘I’m a private investigator, Mr Lu,’ Guan Shan tells him. ‘I can’t arrest you, even if I think you are.’

‘Then what’s the point in what you do?’

Guan Shan bites his tongue. ‘I help out in unsolved cases, or personal requests for information. Collect evidence for my clients. They can do whatever the fuck they want with it.’

Wei Ming narrows his eyes. ‘You’re saying someone’s _hired_ you to look into my wife’s death?’

‘Not exactly.’ Guan Shan pulls up the photo on his phone of Fan Xuemei’s killer, the man Guan Shan had seen through the curtains of a Hebin apartment. ‘Does he look familiar, Mr Lu?’ he asks, watchful. 

Lu Wei Ming glances at it for a second. ‘Nope. Who’s he?’

Guan Shan swipes through the images in his phone, and then holds up another. ‘What about him?’

Another glance. ‘Nope. Should I?’

Guan Shan lets the phone rest on the coffee table, face-up. ‘You didn’t see him at the hospital, before or after Han Xianlan’s death?’

‘Nope.’

‘He didn’t ask you any questions after Han Xianlan died?’

‘Was he supposed to?’

Guan Shan looks at the photo. He Tian’s face stares up at him, upside down, eyes dark and smile absent. He’s dressed down in his BDU, dark khaki and no badges. Guan Shan had downloaded the photo a few years ago, browsing through a database for the PLA. It didn’t say where He Tian was stationed, or what rank he held, and only on impulse had Guan Shan clicked the download button, left the image as an unnamed file on his desktop, painfully easy for drunken versions of himself to open up and stare at for hours that blurred into nights.

Looking at it now, on the coffee table, Guan Shan doesn’t quite recognise it. 

‘Maybe not,’ says Guan Shan. He puts the phone back in his pocket. He tries a different tactic. ‘It must have been difficult for you after she passed. Financially speakin’.’

‘Not really,’ says Wei Ming. He doesn’t say it sharply, not the kind of offence most men would carry at being questioned for his finances, or at the suggestion of his wife earning a higher salary. He says it openly, baldly, and unashamed. ‘I do okay.’

Guan Shan has seen the man’s salary, and he knows where he lives. The rent on his Beijing apartment is almost double the unit he shared with his late wife in Guangzhou. Either Han Xianlan’s life insurance paid out well, or Wei Ming has an undocumented income. Something isn’t adding up. 

‘Han Xianlan was well-paid, wasn’t she?’ Guan Shan asks.

Wei Ming sits a little straighter in his seat. ‘The best in the province. She wrote for Guangzhou’s secretary and mayor. Sometimes went down to Shanghai for their chairman. There were talks of her moving to Beijing in a few years. Maybe working for the general secretary eventually. She had a real way with words, my Ah-Lan.’

His tirade is proud, tinged with sentiment. Guan Shan lifts his eyebrows. ‘Prestigious,’ he remarks. ‘You wouldn’t have minded movin’ for her, if she had the offer in Beijing?’

‘I’m an easily swayed man, Mr Mo. Wouldn’t have mattered to me. Every city needs an engineer, but speech writers are hard to come by.’

‘Right,’ Guan Shan says. _Easily swayed. _It says what it needs to. He nods to himself, says eventually, ‘Well, thank you for meetin’ with me, Mr Lu. And I’m sorry for your loss.’

Wei Ming blinks at him. ‘That’s it? You don’t want to ask me anything else?’

‘Here’s my card if you need. I’m sorry if I’ve wasted your time. ’

The man shrugs, pressing his hands on his knees to help himself up, and takes the card. ‘Doesn’t matter to me.’

***

Guan Shan waits for Lu Wei Ming to walk a block down the street before following him, just long enough for the man to be comfortable in his own isolation, in the faces of strangers around him. He isn’t dressed warmly enough to walk home, no gloves and only a light jacket, but he doesn’t draw out a pair of car keys. He lives not far from Dajiaoting, the route connected by Line 7 on the subway, and Guan Shan follows patiently as Wei Ming walks the mile-long trip through the city to the nearest connecting station. A wind has gathered over the city, cold air turned icy, clouds pulled fast by the air stream so the skies flash blue and tormented grey.

Guan Shan keeps his footsteps light, a baseball cap obscuring his hair and the russet hue of his irises, not close enough to touch but close enough to hear the waver in Wei Ming’s voice as he punches a number into his phone. 

_‘Fucking pick up,’ _he mutters. The collar of Guan Shan’s coat rises high over his mouth and shrouds the fog of his breath, and he presses his chin against his chest when Wei Ming’s gaze swings around behind him, sliding over Guan Shan like the unwavering light of a beacon that illuminates only for a moment before passing on.

Eventually, the call must connect, because Wei Ming’s head jerks upright, and he presses his mouth close to the receiver.

‘You _fuck._ You said no one would come calling.’ His breath is laboured, and his footsteps quicken down the street. Guan Shan follows suit, matching Wei Ming’s strides with ease. He dodges other pedestrians, keeps a careful distance in Wei Ming’s blindside. ‘I don’t know—some P.I. from Tianjin,’ Wei Ming continues. ‘He came asking questions about Han Xianlan and— Yeah. Yeah, he had a _picture_ of you.’ 

Guan Shan nearly trips. There are only a few more blocks before the station, and Wei Ming will lose signal in the subway. The call needs to wrap up soon, and Guan Shan needs to know who he’s talking to. There are only two possibilities, and he finds himself clinging to the need to be wrong. 

‘That’s the one. Red hair. Closed-up piercings. Miserable-looking punk son of a—’ Wei Ming pulls the phone away from his ear, pulling a face. ‘Alright, alright,’ he says eventually. There’s a pause. ‘Of course I fucking didn’t tell him. I’m not stupid. _He_ thinks I am, which is a good thing, right?’

_Wrong. _

‘What do you mean, _wrong?’ _Wei Ming spits.

Guan Shan falters, thinks he’s spoken aloud, but Wei Ming is still scowling into the receiver. 

‘I didn’t fucking know that, did I! You told me it was a done deal. I took the money and that was supposed to be it. You never told me what to say if—Ah, _fuck!_’ In anger, Wei Ming lurches to a stop, and a passerby’s shoulder collides with his. The phone goes skidding onto the concrete pavement behind him, inches from Guan Shan’s feet.

Guan Shan freezes. He only has a few seconds, but he reaches down and snatches the phone from the concrete, then moves quickly to face the window of a bookstore to his left. The ruse of a window-shopper minding his own business, eyes intent on the window display.

In the reflection, he watches Wei Ming twist and turn, eyes latched to the pavement. Guan Shan rubs his thumb over the phone now nestled in his pockets, the broken glass screen digging sharply into his skin, bits of plastic disintegrating in the lining of his pocket. He should leave, move on, but instead he watches. Wei Ming all but kneels on the ground. He searches frantically for the phone amid the feet of a crowd of tourists and hedge fund managers on their lunch break, hands outstretched for the ghost of some thing that isn’t there, and then turns to stare at the road, car tyres turning any remaining snow to sludge, chunks of gravel split and pummelled beneath the rubber. 

‘Fuck,’ Guan Shan hears him mutter. He stands there for a minute, and then looks around as if remembering where he is. Beijingers stream around him, focused and driven, and he looks entirely lost. His beard makes him scruffy, and there’s sweat on his upper lip despite the cold. His clothing renders him unfashionable in a sea of suited men and women and the clatter of heels.

Mostly, he looks like what he is: a southerner out of his depth in a city with eight million more people wedged into the cracks. A man fond of his wife and fonder of money, realising he will reap more from one than the other, and that one is dead and barren. 

He leaves eventually, trudging his way towards the subway, and Guan Shan doesn’t follow him again. Instead, he takes a left back down the road, the streets leading him to a residential sector of high-rises, closed-down convenience stores and laundromats, and food carts covered with plastic sheeting until the evening. 

Sufficiently far enough away from the main street, he slips through an alleyway, darkened with washing lines and electricity wires, and he pulls out the phone. It’s password-protected, but Guan Shan runs through numbers in his head: birthdays, anniversaries. He taps in Wei Ming’s birthday, 123456, the zip codes of his apartments, but the phone remains locked. Guan Shan pauses for a moment, then swipes open a document on his own phone detailing Han Xianlan’s biographical data, scrolling until he finds what he’s looking for. 3rd August 1998. With uncertainty, Guan Shan plugs in her birth date into Wei Ming’s phone, and blinks when the home screen flashes up, the password correct. 

The background reveals a photo of Han Xianlan and Wei Ming dressed in hiking gear. They pose against a wooden fence that overlooks a river valley, skin dirt-ridden and sweaty, smiles wide and accomplished. They’re younger, but not by much, and Guan Shan wonders if they’re simply happier. 

Can you love someone and still profit from their death? Guan Shan ponders. _Maybe, when one thing dies, another takes its place—and fast._

Guan Shan doesn’t spend long thinking. He disables the tracking software Wei Ming has installed on his phone, and then swipes to the call log. The first call: 1.53pm to a contact simply listed as ‘Man’. He doesn’t recognise the number listed under the contact profile, and Guan Shan spends a minute with his finger hovering over the call button. He’s starting to feel a little feverish, the ache of nervousness building in his throat when he swallows. He forces himself to press the button.

The alleyway is still empty when the call connects, and Guan Shan holds his breath.

‘Where the fuck did you go?’ a voice demands on the end of the line.

A cold sensation rushes through him. It’s not a voice he recognises. It’s not He Tian.

Guan Shan’s tongue moves thickly. ‘Dropped my phone,’ he says, and then coughs to distract from the cadence of his voice. 

‘Did you?’ the man replies. ‘That wasn’t very smart.’ 

‘Yeah. Look, what were you sayin’—saying?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘Before?’

‘To you? Absolutely nothing.’

Guan Shan freezes. The voice doesn’t come through the speaker this time—it’s too close, too _real_, and a glance at the phone says that the call has already been disconnected. Slowly, Guan Shan turns around. Panic locks up his muscles as he makes out the figure before him, shadowed but familiar. Guan Shan recalls the face peering at him through the window weeks ago—the bullets that bruised Fan Xuemei’s cold corpse like pockmarks in the morgue.

‘You—’ Guan Shan starts, but the man is already lunging. Guan Shan stumbles back, hands raised in front of his face. He feels a rush of air, a swung fist missing him by inches, but he isn’t prepared for the second punch. Pain blooms in his abdomen, and he doubles over from the blow. He hasn’t fought since high school, doesn’t know what it’s like to let his body move with rage and bitterness anymore, and his reflexes are too slow. 

The man grabs a fistful of Guan Shan’s jacket and jerks his knee upwards. Guan Shan cries out as the man’s knee connects with his nose, hears the crunch of broken bone, the hot pour of blood as it washes down his face and onto the tarmac. He stumbles backwards, hands out to ward off anymore strikes, but the man is too quick, too close. Guan Shan hasn’t landed a single punch. 

_Stupid, _he thinks. _So fucking stupid._

A hand grabs at Guan Shan’s hair, tight enough to pull away from the scalp, Guan Shan’s eyes bleary with tears, and the man hisses, ‘This is what _happens _when you start sticking your nose into other people’s business, Mo Guan Shan.’

‘You’re a fuckin’ _murderer_,’ Guan Shan chokes out, throwing a fist ineffectually. It lands nowhere, flails aimlessly in the air, and a blow pummels him between his shoulder blades. Guan Shan’s knees buckle beneath him, kneecaps smacking against the cement, and he spits blood out into the street. His breathing burns, ribs screaming white-hot as the man’s boot collides with his chest—another crunching sound that makes him gag, bitter bile flooding his mouth.

_There’s a reason he was chosen. He’s skilled, and he’s well-hidden. Ex-army, probably._

Guan Shan’s whole body shakes, a cold wind whipping against his skin. It’s an effort to lift his head, an eye already swelling shut, the other stinging with tears. His broken nose throbs with pain. ‘If you’re gonna kill me,’ he says, grimacing, ‘then just fuckin’ kill me.’

The man stares down at him, disgust plain on his face. ‘Oh, you’d better wish I could,’ he says. ‘But that wasn’t part of the deal.’

_Deal? _Guan Shan thinks. He can barely hear himself over the throbbing in his head, the wind whistling through the narrow alleyway. _A deal made by who? _

Thoughts race through his mind, a senseless stream of reasoning and rationalising that doesn’t add up. There’s no gun—no knife. This is a beating; this pain is slow and steady and built to last. For what purpose? A message? Guan Shan doesn’t know. There’s too much of him hurting, not enough of him ready to defend, nothing to fight. He’s too lost to see the man swing back with his fist, too exhausted to know that the bunched knuckles are bound for him. 

Pain sears between his eyes, excruciating and exact, and then the darkness comes.

***

He Tian had sent over his address earlier that morning—tomorrow, they would meet there, have a drink, and then go for lunch. It would be a charade, part of Guan Shan’s commitment to civility, He Tian’s gleeful moment of torment. That’s all it is: He Tian, pulling him back and forth like a marionette with a string at every ligament. 

It works in Guan Shan's favour. When he wakes, it's raining, his cheek pressed into a gutter overflowing with sewage. His jaw doesn't work properly, refuses to lock itself into place. He moves slowly: a hand, knuckles grazed, to push himself up. Pain rolls through him; the nausea comes in a wave, ebbs with a hard swallow. He spits a mouthful of blood onto the pavement. 

_Fuck, _he thinks. He grimaces, gets himself onto his feet—sways, stumbles, steadies himself. There’s a part of him that wouldn’t mind collapsing back into the gutter and staying there. The other part forces him to look through his one good eye and take stock of his surroundings. The sky above (darkened, threatening rain or snow); the shops (still shut, carts covered in tarpaulin); the streets beyond (busy, building up with rush-hour traffic). 

He still has his phone—he’s been out of it less than an hour. Enough time, probably, for someone to have passed him in the alley and decided he wasn’t worth the effort. Guan Shan grits his teeth and regrets it. He hurts everywhere; his right side blooms with pain when he moves, and he cries out with his first step, close to toppling over.

_I can’t, _he thinks. _I fucking can’t._

He stands there until the DiDi bike turns up, weaving down the alleyways with deft turns. Guan Shan is shaking by the time the driver pulls up in front of him, and flicks up her visor. 

‘Are you gonna be good ‘til Tianjin?’ she says, voice thick with uncertainty over the idling engine of the bike. ‘I won’t be liable if you fall off, y’know.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ he grits out. He moves slowly, bites back a cry as he gets himself onto the back of the bike. The jolt forward stabs through him; his shout is lost over the sound of the engine revving as his driver weaves her way onto the streets. Twice he thinks he’ll fall off, half-ready to pass out and get finished off by a truck that catches him before he even hits the highway tarmac.

The woman doesn’t drive slowly; in little over an hour, she gets him to He Tian’s Tianjin apartment block, and waits with silent patience while Guan Shan musters up the courage to get back on his feet.

‘You should see a doctor,’ she tells him.

He shakes his head, regrets it, then leans carefully, a hand pressed against his side. ‘I’ll be fine.’

He waits until the bike is out of sight before retching onto the pavement. Nothing comes up; bile stings his throat, and he spits into a gutter. A woman speed-walking past him in gym kit and a gilet makes a disgusted sound and gives him a wide berth, which he ignores. The block is more expensive than He Tian let on, the area richer, the balconies dressed up with wrought iron fencing and a decent view of the city—it doesn’t surprise him. There’s a camera hanging over the intercom panel at the door, a doorman eyeing him suspiciously through the glass from the inside lobby. 

Guan Shan ignores him, too, jabs his finger against the buzzer, slumps against the wall. He breathes out through his nose, in through his mouth. 

Five seconds, and there’s a click. 

‘Who is it?’

Guan Shan pushes away from the wall, and squints into the intercom light with one eye sealed shut. ‘Three guesses,’ he says.

‘Oh, fuck.’

Guan Shan can’t laugh or he’ll cry. ‘Close enough.’

***

‘A cigarette,’ Guan Shan requests, slumping onto He Tian’s sofa. He’s been gracelessly deposited there after being half-carried out of the elevator and along to He Tian’s apartment: newly varnished floors, marble countertops, windows that fill the white-painted walls and shut fully and a ceiling without stains. The sofa is deep, feels expensive. Guan Shan’s probably getting blood on it—and gutter water, and mud, and who knows what else he’s picked up along the streets. He Tian lets him. ‘Gimme a fuckin’ cigarette.’

‘You can’t smoke in here.’

_‘He Tian_—’

‘Alright, alright.’ He Tian holds his hands up. ‘Hold on.’ 

He rifles through a jacket pocket hung over the back of a dining table chair, then procures a half-empty packet of Chunghwas and a lighter. He props the cigarette between his lips, lights it, then hands it over, smokey tendrils wafting towards the ceiling. 

‘This isn’t the time to take up a filthy habit,’ He Tian remarks when Guan Shan winces through his first drag. The inhale stabs sharply in his ribcage—he splutters on a cough, doubles over. The ice pack he has against his ribs falls to the ground with a wet thud. 

‘Fucking hell,’ He Tian mutters, coming to kneel down at Guan Shan’s side by the sofa. ‘Look at you.’ His voice is strained; the sound of it gives Guan Shan a deeper, alien pain in his chest that he doesn’t care to identify. It’s cold and distant, a cavern he doesn’t have the equipment to scale. One wrong step and there’ll be a subsidence, too quick for him to know the ground has fallen out beneath him.

Eventually, Guan Shan gives up the cigarette, half-finished and rancid. His mouth tastes awful; his throat is sandpaper dry. His hand shakes too much to hold it.

_Fuck, _he thinks, watching it burn down. He doesn’t want to die on He Tian’s fucking sofa. 

He Tian takes the look on his face as invitation, plucking the cigarette from Guan Shan’s fingers and grinding it into the ashtray on the coffee table. He disappears to another room, returning a moment later armed with a warning glance and a pair of scissors. Guan Shan’s shirt cuts away easily, sodden with gutter water and condensation from the ice pack and a gush of rust-coloured blood from his broken nose, and He Tian sits back on his heels once the fabric has been peeled away. His eyes flicker to Guan Shan’s.

‘That bad?’ Guan Shan mutters.

There’s a pause, and then: ‘Guan Shan, you need a doctor.’ He says it with a flat resolution that’s frightening. He’s not leering at Guan Shan’s bare chest, the strip of hair below his navel; there’s no lilting humour lifting up the corners of He Tian’s mouth. His assessment is dismal. 

‘I need painkillers.’ He glances down, sees purple where there should be skin, and closes his eyes. ‘Morphine and a bottle of vodka. You got either?’

Another pause. ‘Fucking idiot…’ He Tian isn’t listening to a word he’s saying—he’s just _staring. _‘You got jumped like this and you dragged your ass to _me?’_

For a moment, neither of them says a thing, and then: Guan Shan starts to laugh. It’s a mess, leaves him spluttering, wheezing. He makes a hacking sound that he realises comes from his lungs and _fuck. _

_‘Stop_,’ He Tian tells him, trying to still him with a vice-like grip on his shoulders. ‘Fucking stop. Why the fuck are you laughing?’

‘’Cause—’Cause I didn’t just get _jumped. _Because I’m fuckin’ _alive._’ He meets He Tian’s gaze. ‘They shoulda killed me but they didn’t, and there’s gotta be a reason why.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Please consider supporting me if you liked this work - you can find out how via my [Tumblr!](http://agapaic.tumblr.com)**


	9. Chapter 9

A doctor comes when Guan Shan loses the energy to argue. They both know it by now: no hospitals. Guan Shan knows it’s bad when the old man takes one look at the bruised mess of his torso and sighs. He drops a leather satchel on the bedside, smacking against the wooden floorboards with a dull _thwack. _He has the look about him of a man who’s worked a twelve-hour shift in A&E and has a mangled case of sheer human stupidity set out before him. Guan Shan doesn’t care much for the judgment, but he knows that he hurts.

He takes the morphine with a_ thank you_, bites back a _fuck you _as his nose is realigned and packed with enough gauze to stop him from breathing through it. The doctor rules out internal bleeding after some tests, feels his way around for a selection of broken ribs that should, he remarks, heal on their own with enough time and care. He gives Guan Shan an assessing look that assumes Guan Shan has little of either.

‘Breathe deeply,’ the doctor tells him, snapping up the fastenings on his bag, ‘or you’ll risk pneumonia.’

_A little hard, don’t you think, _Guan Shan wants to reply, _with all this shit up my nose?_

He says nothing. He waits until the man trades a packet of pills for cash with He Tian, who’s been monitoring the scene silently from the bedroom doorway. There’s a murmured exchange of words—_Until next time_, _dàfū—_and the front door clicks shut. An electric lock whirrs, beeps. When He Tian returns, Guan Shan gives him a look. 

‘You just paid too much for what I could’ve found out from WebMD,’ Guan Shan says.

‘You wouldn’t be saying that if you died out from a punctured lung,’ He Tian replies.

‘I wouldn’t be sayin’ anythin’ at all.’

He Tian ignores him, and comes forward. The bed is too big—a Californian King?—large enough to lose himself in. The bed dips. He Tian positions himself just at Guan Shan’s side, close enough that his head looms over and blocks out the ceiling light. 

‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’

Guan Shan’s sigh warps into a mangled cry of pain. He Tian’s hand flits near to his face—they both still—then it drops. A gesture of mistaken comfort, skin-on-skin. Guan Shan’s in his bed, but they’ve crossed no new barriers, transcended no old lines traced in the sand with a dragged heel, easy to scuff over like brushing dirt over a row of new seeds. Nothing’s going to grow here. 

After a moment, Guan Shan says, ‘Are you tellin’ me you don’t already know?’

‘Is that what you want to hear?’

Guan Shan pulls a face, but his mouth doesn’t work the way he wants it to. It feels heavy behind his eyes, a drunken lack of focus that he can’t correct. How much morphine did the doctor give him? He could fall asleep, right here, and wouldn’t be too bothered about his unanswered question. Fuck, that sounds nice._ Sleep._

‘The guy that jumped me,’ he says eventually, tugging his thoughts into only semi-cohesion, given the circumstances. ‘Same guy you’re lookin’ for. Got me down some alley in Beijing. A fuckin’ _alleyway_.’

It’s gone dark outside, and the ceiling light is too bright. Shadows fall strangely about them, snatching pockets of light that shouldn’t be so dark. He Tian’s gaze falls past him, settles on the cloth-bound headboard, the look flat as a wind-worn stone. It’s the kind of look, Guan Shan decides, that he could skim across a lake until it hits the bank on the other side—and keeps going. 

It’s an answer.

‘Did you know?’ Guan Shan asks again.

He Tian stands. His gaze falls to the floor; it’s been some time since he last looked Guan Shan in the eye. ‘I didn’t,’ he says, the words taut. ‘I need to make some calls. You should sleep. You look like shit.’

‘He Tian—’

‘For fuck’s sake—_I didn’t know,_ Guan Shan.’ His fist clenches, unclenches, at his side. ‘You think I would’ve let it happen? That I would’ve sat here while you got attacked a hundred kilometres away? Fucking hell, sweetheart—I’ve really dropped low in your esteem, haven’t I?’

‘Were never pretty high to begin with.’

At best, it’s a half-truth handed out through the strange delirium of pain and painkillers, but Guan Shan isn’t feeling up to indulge He Tian’s bitterness. He Tian looks away; maybe he can detect the truth. Maybe he can’t. 

‘Go,’ Guan Shan croaks, when He Tian heads to the hallway. ‘Make your fuckin’ call to whoever the fuck you talk to. I’ll sleep off the broken ribs and tell myself it’s still the government, alright?’

He Tian flicks off the light off the door, and Guan Shan can’t see any part of his expression. Darkness fills the room, and with it comes a silence that presses down on the inside of Guan Shan’s skull. His breathing is laboured. _Deep breaths, _he thinks. _In through the nose—Ow, fuck. _His breath is a shuddering splutter on an inhale.

‘Guan Shan,’ He Tian says, after a moment, ‘if that’s what gets you to sleep, you can tell yourself whatever the hell you like.’

***

He sleeps for twenty hours. When he wakes, the sky outside is dark again, and cold, and there’s a slight person-shaped indent on the other side of the bed. It’s large enough that, if Guan Shan were to stretch an arm out and reach with his fingers, he’s sure he would’ve found He Tian’s hand. 

He reaches—falls short. 

He Tian isn’t there, and the sheets are cool to the touch despite the warmth in the room. He wonders how long He Tian lay there last night, a hand hovered over Guan Shan’s mouth, just to check for his breath.

After a few minutes, Guan Shan looks around blearily. The windows are fogged with condensation, and there is a glass of lukewarm water on the bedside table and a dish of pills of varying sizes, as well as a small syringe without a needle, already filled with a viscous solution. It sits on a sticky note that reads, _10mg morphine. Sublingual application (apply under tongue)._

He drinks the water in one, which is starting to collect air bubbles, then plunges the morphine beneath his tongue. Hs mouth tastes rancid, as if something has settled and died there in his sleep, and his stomach feels cavernous and empty. 

When he moves, he wants to cry. Yesterday’s painkillers have worn off, and all over is a dull throbbing that threatens to flare like a match waved haphazardly near a fuse. 

_Fucking amazing, _he thinks. A few well-placed punches, a series of boot kicks colliding with his ribs, and he’s out of commission for at least a month. Two months, if the doctor has his way, but Guan Shan can’t make those sorts of promises. 

He gets himself to a sitting position on the side of the bed, stares down grimly at the bruising, and tries not to concentrate too much on how hard it feels to drag in a breath big enough to fill his lungs. Shallowly, he can just nearly avoid the sharp slicing of fragmented bone against muscle and tissue that splits him in two. 

He tries instead to think about He Tian’s absence, about how many steps it will take to get to the bathroom because _fuck _he needs a piss. It distracts him for ten minutes: an agonised, slow shuffle to the adjoining bathroom, gleaming and expensively fitted. He washes his hands with bar soap that smells of olive oil, and tries not to reel when he catches his reflection in the mirror.

_‘Motherfucker_,’ he hisses.

It’s gruesome; it’s embarrassing. His skin seems to have lost all colour, as if all the blood has flooded to cushion his fissured rib cage. There’s an ugly pallor to his cheeks, hollow bruising around his eye sockets, a swollen lump on the side of his jaw like he’s just had a root canal. His lips are cracked and threatening to bleed; old spit drying at the corners of his mouth. With his nose full of rust-red gauze and cotton, the whites of eyes stained red with burst vessels, the colour of his eyes have become entirely forgettable. 

A glance at the bruised mess of his ribcage, a gentle press of fingertips against his near-concave chest—he makes a keening sound in pain, another of disgust, and turns away. 

He startles. 

‘Still look pretty to me, Little Mo,’ says He Tian, propped in the doorway. ‘Not sure you should be doing anything close to standing, though.’

‘You ever heard of a little thing called _privacy_?’ Guan Shan snaps.

‘I heard the tap running,’ says He Tian with a nonchalant shrug. ‘Either this—or you were drowning in the bathtub behind these doors. My doors.’

‘Yeah,’ says Guan Shan, lifting his eyes around the bathroom. ‘Your cheap little bedsit in the city, you’d said. What’s this place worth? Ten grand a month? More?’ 

‘Does it matter that much to you?’

Guan Shan sniffs. The gesture burns. ‘Guess not.’

He Tian angles his head back. ‘I made breakfast. Help yourself to clothes.’ He pauses, lets his gaze linger on Guan Shan’s bare skin only for a moment, and then meets his eyes. ‘You should eat.’ 

He walks out before Guan Shan can protest, leaves him standing there with a hand curled around the basin of the sink. Guan Shan spits into it, watches a sticky globule of blood run down the drain, and grimaces. His face is damp with sweat by the time he dresses in a pair of old sweats conveniently placed in the first drawer he opens, and he walks out into the hallway and towards the open kitchen-diner. He presses a hand to the wall, weighs up his options: the sofa, the low-backed bar stools beneath the kitchen island, the small table and its stiff-looking metal chairs. 

He stays standing. 

In the kitchen, He Tian’s peeling clementines into a bowl, and there’s a small tray of food laid out beside it: microwaved steamed buns, fried bread sticks, a carton of soy milk, a bowl of lychee and peaches glazed with syrup. 

It’s dark outside, closer to dinnertime rather than breakfast, but Guan Shan’s stomach gnaws at him. He glances at the remnants of the packaging: an empty can, a polystyrene tray, plastic casings crumpled into the bottom of a convenience store bag.

‘You _made _breakfast, huh?’ he says.

He Tian glances up, shrugs, smirks. ‘One way or another.’

He doesn’t remark on Guan Shan’s slow, awkward shuffle into the kitchen; still, he’s watching from the corner of his eyes. At one point, when Guan Shan pauses halfway to catch his breath and let the pain abate, He Tian looks over sharply like he might run over and carry him the rest of the way. Instead, he stands there, digs his thumb beneath the delicate rind of a clementine, and strips it free of pith. 

He Tian slides the bowl of peeled segments across to him. ‘Eat,’ he says. 

With open suspicion, Guan Shan takes a piece, and puts it carefully between his molars. It’s painful: his nose and eyes sharply ache, his jaw is pulsing. He thinks the fruit is the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted. Watching closely, He Tian gives a satisfied nod, and goes back to peeling.

Guan Shan eats in silence, and after a few minutes he looks down at the empty bowl in surprise. Hungrily, he eyes the steamed buns, still warm. He Tian sets them down in front of him, says nothing as Guan Shan tears one into pieces and makes an indulgent sound in the back of his throat. He eats the rest, the dough soft, the beef and vegetable filling overly salty, washes it down with warmed soy milk. Soon enough, he feels sick. 

‘When’s the last time you had a proper meal?’ He Tian asks flippantly. 

Guan Shan works his jaw around a peach slice, and swallows. ‘My ma’s. New Year’s.’

He Tian nods. ‘You look like you could probably do with a year of her cooking,’ he says, and then: ‘You used to spend hours in the kitchen. Don’t you like it anymore?’

‘Don’t have time,’ Guan Shan admits grudgingly, spearing a lychee with a plastic two-pronged fork.

He Tian starts to gather the empty bowls and plates, clementine peel tipped into a metal bin on the counter labelled ‘COMPOST’. He shakes his head. ‘You had three jobs and schoolwork back then. You’re telling me you’ve got _less _time now?’

‘I’d go back to that if I could. Packin’ up fruit at the grocery store beats this any day.’

He Tian considers him. ‘No, you wouldn’t. You didn’t like the customers and your manager was a bitch to you. And you got bored.’

‘It was easy money.’

He Tian shrugs. ‘So was the job my brother offered you after you didn’t get in the academy, and you turned that down.’

Guan Shan narrows his eyes. The motion pulls at his broken nose, makes him wince. ‘Are you tryn’a tell me somethin’ here?’ he says. ‘’Cause I’m not really in the mood to play detective with you right now.’

‘No,’ He Tian says, sighing. ‘Nothing.’ 

He stacks the dishes into the dishwasher, wipes over the counter with a wet cloth, and tosses away the trash. Guan Shan watches him move about with an enviable ease, and tries to muster up the energy to get himself to the door.

Steeled, he takes a step— 

‘Where are you going?’

Guan Shan rears back. ‘Home,’ he says. ‘Unless that’s a problem?’

He Tian stares at him. ‘You need rest. You can barely walk ten fucking feet without looking like you’re about to collapse.’

_Ah, _Guan Shan thinks. _Explains why I didn’t get breakfast in bed: he had to prove a fucking point. _He says, ‘Good thing my apartment’s smaller than yours.’

He Tian rolls his eyes. ‘Let’s not compare dicks right now, alright? We both know how that works. Sit down.’

‘I’m not stayin’ here,’ Guan Shan grits out. ‘I don’t need help.’

‘You think I care?’ He Tian says archly. ‘The doctor told you to rest—’

‘Sure, but I can rest at home without some quack tellin’ me—’

‘He isn’t _some quack_. He treated my father in the hospital.’

‘Didn’t do a very good job, did he?’

He Tian gives him a levelled stare. He looks like he’s about to say something, and then thinks better of it. Guan Shan, apparently, didn’t have that red flag mechanism flash up to tell him when it’s time to _stop talking_. Instead, he’s succeeded only in goading He Tian about his dead dad. 

He drags a hand over his face, dismisses the pain. Can he really not help himself sometimes? he wonders. Does he have to say something like _that _to feel like he’s winning?

‘I shouldn’t’ve said that,’ he says. He shakes his head. ‘You should’ve kept your money. It’s just some broken bones. Save his fancy expertise for somethin’ that matters.’

‘I did,’ says He Tian. ‘You.’

Guan Shan looks away. His heart thuds hard in his chest. Through the windows, snow has started to fall, wintry flakes illuminated by windowpane lighting and threatening something heavier. It’s late, the driving conditions poor, and a DiDi will be expensive back to his place; he already spent too much on the ride from Beijing yesterday, can’t understand now how he stayed on the back of the bike with the pain as it is already. Adrenaline, probably. Sheer fucking will. 

‘Fine. Just for tonight,’ he says. ‘But I need to get my car from Beijing.’ He knows there’s probably a ticket on it already, a fine he’s loath to pay.

‘I’ll have someone pick it up. You won’t be driving for a while.’

‘Yeah? Says who?’

‘Says me and Dr Zhao and your three broken ribs. If you want to puncture a lung from sliding over ice and putting on the breaks—be my guest. But don’t be stupid.’

Guan Shan pulls a face. He Tian—fuck him—is right. Has he ever learnt that lesson? Running on an injury, pushing through an illness to get to the other side, getting caught out when the pain doesn’t abate. Gets worse. He huffs—regrets it, sparks to anger. How long is going to be like this? Bones cutting the underside of him, breath stolen like a thief putting a greedy fist around his lungs and _squeezing_.

‘I hate this,’ he mutters. ‘That guy should’ve just…’ Killed him? No. Swung his fist hard enough that Guan Shan wouldn’t have to wake up until he was halfway to walking without wanting to cry with every step. A coma would’ve been nice, waking up when it’s over. Does that make him a coward? Does it make him suicidal? Guan Shan doesn’t know. He suspects He Tian has the money for it: a barbiturate coma, a host of medical staff to watch over Guan Shan and pull him out when he’s ready, fresh and good to go, a little muscular atrophy, nothing that hasn’t happened to his body already over the last few years.

‘What are you thinking?’ He Tian asks him. The silence has gone on too long, and Guan Shan pulls himself out.

‘That I need sleep,’ he admits. ‘And more food.’

‘I can give you that,’ He Tian says wryly. ‘We’ll have to take a raincheck on the lunch date.’

‘Yeah, wasn’t gonna be a date.’

‘Semantics.’

Guan Shan narrows his eyes. His vision is pinched, and he clings to the edge of the kitchen island. He Tian’s wry look softens, and he sighs. ‘Back to bed with you,’ he says, swinging his arm in the vague direction of the bedroom. 

‘I need a shower or—to wash or somethin’. I fuckin’ reek.’ There is blood still crusted around his nose, and it tickles him whenever he breathes in. 

He Tian assesses him. An eyebrow lifts. ‘You can’t do it yourself.’

Guan Shan grits his teeth. Fuck this. Fuck him. Maybe he should just fester in He Tian’s sheets and have done with it. But already the smell of him is offensive; already he can smell the dirt and grime and gutter water going foul on his skin. 

He says, ‘A little help?’

He Tian’s eyes go heavy. His hands, already, are reaching. ‘Why, sweetheart,’ he says, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

***

‘It wasn’t ‘cause of you,’ Guan Shan says later. The room is a little warm, the damp heat of the bathroom escaping the pull of the ceiling fan and leaking into the bedroom. Guan Shan’s skin is a little warm, too, slowly settling. Fucking finally. 

‘Of course,’ He Tian replies. ‘Natural response.’

‘I fuckin’ mean it.’ Guan Shan’s skull rolls against the pillow. ‘Don’t let it get to your head.’

‘Of course.’

Guan Shan stares at the ceiling, freshly cleaned, the bed newly made. He takes a deep breath, rides through the pain of his actions, and lets it out. He’s done with himself today. Hell, he’s always done with himself, but why did he have to do _that? _Why did he have to let it happen?

‘Aw, don’t be embarrassed, sweetheart,’ He Tian chuckles, moving around him: water on the bedside, a newly prepped syringe of morphine, lamplight clicked to butter-yellow brightness, orange at the edges. ‘It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.’

Guan Shan’s eyes close. ‘I wasn’t thinkin’ about it,’ he says. ‘Me and you. Sex. I wasn’t. I don’t—You and me. It’s not somethin’ I—’

‘Guan Shan.’ Cut-off, Guan Shan goes quiet, a badly tuned piano silenced at the strings. ‘Hey, look at me.’ Eventually, like a child preparing for the monster at the end of its bed, he opens them. He Tian says, ‘You don’t need to keep explaining yourself. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter that much.’

‘You sure about that?’ Guan Shan mutters. ‘You had my hard dick in your fuckin’ face and you didn’t _care_?’

‘I also had your broken ribcage and a lot of bruised skin. Believe it or not: there were other things on my mind. Not that I didn’t notice it. Did you want me to? Should I have been flattered?’

Guan Shan’s gaze snaps. ‘He Tian—’

‘I’m fucking _around _with you,’ He Tian interrupts, droll. ‘Here. Take your morphine and go to sleep. You’re thinking far too much about something that’s usually my prerogative.’

The syringe hovers near Guan Shan’s mouth; obedient, disgruntled, he opens it. He Tian presses the plunger beneath Guan Shan’s tongue, and Guan Shan swallows the cold fluid, the morphine viscous and strangely sweet.

‘Gross,’ he mutters. 

‘Bearable,’ He Tian corrects, handing him a glass of water. ‘Especially for that high.’

Guan Shan rolls his eyes. It’s not as fast as an IV, but he doesn’t mind. Soon enough, his eyes will go heavy, a warm haze curling at the edges of his vision. _Oh, _he thinks, a few seconds later: they’re already shut. There’s the rustle of fabric, and He Tian is pulling the sheets up and over Guan Shan’s shoulders. _That’s nice, _Guan Shan thinks.

‘You gonna sleep, too?’ he mumbles.

‘Not right now,’ He Tian tells him. His voice is strange, both near and far, like he’s standing at once right beside the bed and on the other side of the room. ‘Maybe later. I have some work to do.’

‘Work.’ Right now, that sounds like the worst decision anyone could make. Work—at this time? Now? When He Tian could be lifting up the sheet and making a space for himself in his bed. His own bed. Where Guan Shan is lying, right now. Fuck. 

‘Calls to make. I have to head out for a bit. Meet someone. You’ll be asleep.’

Guan Shan says, ‘For work.’

‘What else for?’

Guan Shan doesn’t reply. The silence continues; He Tian doesn’t ask him again. When Guan Shan opens his eyes, he catches the time on the clock. Somehow, three hours have slipped by, and He Tian is gone.

***

Four days pass. Guan Shan gains his strength—only a little. Enough to walk to the bathroom without being close to passing out; enough that he can almost wash himself. He can get to the living area, where he spends the day on the sofa and has He Tian hand him bowls of convenience store food, still scalding from the microwave. He Tian goes to his apartment, brings his laptop and some notebooks that he promises not to look at. He forgets Guan Shan’s clothes, and his toothbrush. 

_Thought about what you’d need, _is He Tian’s excuse. _Guess you didn’t need that._

‘I need real food,’ Guan Shan says on the fifth day. He hasn’t had any morphine today, and the pain of his ribs is making him restless and irritated like a heat rash. ‘No more_ biàn lì _shit.’

He Tian, sitting beside him on the sofa, cracks the lid on a bottle of aloe juice, cloudy with pulp. ‘I survive on it,’ he says with a shrug.

Guan Shan eyes him over the lid of his laptop, legs stretched out. His toes are nearly touching He Tian’s thighs. ‘I wanna do more than survive. My dad would be…’

‘Go on.’

‘He’d think my dietary choices are a fuckin’ travesty.’

He Tian snorts. ‘Mine would, too. Lucky for me, he’s not around to see it.’ He takes a swig, and his expression twists. ‘Or maybe he is, the old bastard… Either way,’ he says, with the air of a conclusive announcement, ‘I’ll make something tomorrow for us. From scratch. With _real _vegetables. Have you got a recipe?’

Guan Shan hesitates. ‘I was… thinkin’ I should probably go back tomorrow, actually.’

Slowly, He Tian puts the bottle on the table. ‘Tomorrow?’

Guan Shan gestures to his laptop. ‘I’m not gettin’ far with the case bein’ here. And this...’ His gaze sweeps the apartment, the windows that fog up at night, the familiar paper bags from the convenience store. The socks on his feet—He Tian’s. ‘This isn’t…’ 

_This isn’t real. This is us playing a charade that wore thin a few years ago. _

‘Huh,’ He Tian says. ‘Alright then.’

There’s an impulsive need to apologise, lingering on the tip of Guan Shan’s tongue like a blister. But he doesn’t. He can see their murky reflection in the switched-off TV screen, which stands opposite them. They’re vague, darkish shapes without features or expression, units of darkness that fill the light. Guan Shan tilts his head, and the figure follows. Guan Shan looks back to He Tian. 

‘Did you watch the surveillance?’

He Tian’s eyebrows lift. ‘Of what?’

‘Five days ago in Beijing. Assumed it was you that wiped it from the database.’ Guan Shan taps a fingernail against the edge of his keyboard. ‘I just checked—couldn’t find a fuckin’ thing.’

‘You shouldn’t be looking to begin with.’

‘Don’t lecture me—it’s too late for that.’

He Tian’s lips press together. ‘I watched it,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t track him far—he knew the city’s blindspots.’

‘How fuckin’ convenient,’ Guan Shan murmurs. 

‘It wasn’t easy to watch.’

Guan Shan sneers. ‘Did you need a trigger warnin’? Was my fuckin’ _face_ not enough?’

He Tian is irritable. ‘Don’t be such a fucking—You know what I meant. And I bet you would’ve felt the same.’

Quiet settles; truth rings clear as a Sunday morning church bell. If their roles were reversed, Guan Shan would’ve been ill with poorly veiled concern. Outside, a car horn blares through the wintry silence down on the streets.Guan Shan heaves a sigh, grits himself against the soreness of his ribs. He doesn’t need the morphine, but he wants it.

‘I’ve already felt like that,’ he says eventually. ‘The shit you did for me in school… D’you remember that fight with She Li? When he started that rumour?’

‘I remember.’

‘You gave me your jacket.’ Guan Shan huffs at himself. He still has it, somewhere. It’ll fit him well now—the cuffs used to hang past his wrists, the oversized shape of it leaning off one shoulder. Funny, he thinks, that he’s only the size now that He Tian was at fifteen. It strikes a strange chord in him.

‘You gave me yours,’ says He Tian.

‘You turned up all covered in blood after school and I…’ Guan Shan shakes his head, and admits it: ‘Thought my fuckin’ heart stopped for a second. Felt sick as a fuckin’ dog. And you’d done it for _me_. We barely fuckin’ knew each other then. It’d only been, what, two weeks since we’d started talkin’? Three?’

He Tian picks up the bottle of aloe juice, considers it like he’s contemplating filling the rest up with _baijiu _or vodka. ‘It didn’t feel like that—or I wouldn’t have done it.’

‘Guess not.’

***

He Tian drives Guan Shan back the next morning. It’s rough going: every break at the lights and sharp turn of a corner pulls at Guan Shan’s ribs, bone stabbing into the soft tissue of his lungs. He’s sweating as he unlocks the door to his apartment, breath shallow and nauseating, and He Tian stands at a respectable distance with Guan Shan’s backpack over his shoulder.

He Tian doesn’t stay long. He watches Guan Shan settle in, watches him around the space until He Tian appears confident that he’s capable of taking a piss from the bathroom (pipes creaking, sink layered in dust), getting water from the kitchen tap (taps rusted, faucet coated in limescale), and pulling the blinds over the window (still-cracked). It hurts, but Guan Shan does it, and turns to He Tian with a _well, then? _kind of look. 

‘If you’re sure,’ He Tian says at the door. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘I’ve got food in the freezer.’ Despite the bitter chill in the apartment, Guan Shan wipes a sheen of sweat from his forehead. He gestures towards the fridge-freezer that doesn’t come higher than Guan Shan’s waist. ‘You can take some, if you want. There’s stew, _baozi… _ Pickles in the fridge. Some other shit too, I guess.’

He Tian smirks. ‘I’ll survive.’

‘Suit yourself.’

He chuckles. ‘Is that your way of telling me to fuck off, then?’

Guan Shan glances around the place. The pipes are slow to heat, and there are papers strewn across most of the surfaces where there isn’t rust or worn-down sealant tarnished with mildew. It’s not He Tian’s apartment, polished and pristine, where there are more than two rooms and the view from the window (_windows_, plural) looks over the city and not just into it. It’s not even close. 

‘Guess so,’ Guan Shan says. ‘I need to make a couple calls.’

‘Right,’ says He Tian. He’s still holding Guan Shan’s backpack, and now lets it fall to the floor with a thump. ‘Work.’

Guan Shan’s tired; the morning’s short journey across the city has taken it out of him. He needs pain-killers, and a cold shower, and an ice pack over his ribs and still-healing nose, both throbbing like feeling a pulse in a sore gum, a new tooth starting to breach. 

He keeps his gaze steady. ‘You tell me mine, I’ll tell you yours.’

He Tian leans back towards the door. ‘Guan Shan, I…’

Guan Shan _tsks. _‘Did you or your brother find out what happened with the jet? The other pilot? The one that nearly fuckin’ killed us all?’

‘I think so,’ says He Tian, and nothing more. 

_Wow, _Guan Shan thinks, and says, ‘Yeah_, now _I’m tellin’ you to fuck off.’

‘Guan Shan—’

Guan Shan holds a hand up. ‘I’m gettin’ really fuckin’ sick of hearin’ you tell me I don’t understand this shit. Or just tellin’ me jack shit. Whenever you’re ready to tell me the fuckin’ truth, I’ll be happy to hear it, but for now: fuck off, He Tian.’

‘It’s my job—’

‘And it’s my life.’ Guan Shan narrows his eyes. His hand drops to his side, a curled fist. ‘These last few days—I dunno what the fuck they were, or what the fuck you thought we were, but it looks like you’re gettin’ your priorities mixed up.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’

And there’s the travesty. He Tian, standing in the doorway of Guan Shan’s apartment: admitting to his own failures for once. There’s nothing more than acknowledgment—no dedication to change, to adapt, to be better. (Better for Guan Shan, or better for himself?) There’s just this: _I fuck up, and that’s the unapologetic truth of it. _

It’s not enough. 

***

‘Mo Guan Shan, how are you?’

‘I’ve been better,’ he tells Jian Yi’s mother, lying on his mattress, back carefully propped up with pillows against the wall. ‘Don’t usually get my ribs broken for a job.’

There’s a long pause on the other end of the line. ‘I suppose it helps that you’re being paid remarkably well.’

Guan Shan swallows his sigh, a disgruntled breath of air. He won’t waste her time. ‘I’ve hit a dead end, madam.’

Another, longer pause. ‘I see.’

‘I can’t do this anymore. This case—it’s gonna kill me before I end up findin’ anythin’. An inhale, on the other end, and he presses on: ‘I’m not responsible for Jian Yi. You can’t make me responsible for him. It doesn’t mean I don’t wanna see him get hurt. He’s got people watchin’ him.’

‘I’ll pay you more,’ says Jian Yi’s mother. Her words are clipped, her voice smooth and accentless. ‘Name your price.’

Guan Shan rubs his face. ‘It’s not about money. This is a bigger thing than someone like me can deal with—the cards aren’t in my favour.’

‘I didn’t ask you to do the job because the _stars_ were _aligned_, Mr Mo,’ she replies frigidly.

‘That’s not what I’m sayin’. There are things I can’t get to the bottom of. I’m just one person. And—I think He Tian’s involved somehow in all this and—’

‘He Tian? I know his family well. You said the son was trustworthy.’ With an edge, she adds: ‘He’s been watching mine.’

Guan Shan has the urge to press at his torso, to trigger that shattering flare of pain. _What instincts are those? _Jian Yi had asked. _The ones that want to get back at him for hurting you? Or the ones that know when a lead is worth following, and when it isn’t? _

It strikes him now: a nail hammered into the centre of his skull. Worse than his broken nose or his shattered ribs, the selfish betrayal of his own heart bruises him all the way to the core like a rotten apple.

He swallows. ‘I think… maybe there’s a conflict of interest.’

‘A conflict of interest,’ she repeats, and then: ‘That’s disappointing. I’d thought better things of you, Mr Mo.’

Guan Shan smiles to himself when she hangs up, minutes later, and thinks, _Yeah. I’d thought better of myself, too._

***

February slips away, taking the coldest days with it, and March comes with the cautious bloom of flowers and cloudless, blue-skied days that feign at summertime. Guan Shan takes on smaller cases: cheating partners, runaway teenagers, pictures leaked to the internet that shouldn't have seen the light of day. They’re easy open-and-shut jobs that don’t need the police or strenuous digging, and Guan Shan files his paid invoices with an oddly serene sense of satisfaction. 

Jian Yi’s mother doesn’t call him again, and he avoids He Tian’s texts for the better part of two weeks, affecting an air of disinterest and preoccupation with work. It isn’t a lie: he is busy, and he isn’t interested. It takes effort not to pick up He Tian’s calls and reply to his texts; it feels clean. 

_Why did you drop the case?_

A question Guan Shan doesn’t have to answer. He owes He Tian nothing. The thought exhilarates him. When he asks himself the question, he draws a blank, cows from digging for an answer. He owes himself nothing, too, but that realisation has no joy. When did he stop showing up for himself? Has he ever started?

Guan Shan doesn’t probe far. He’ll leave that to the therapist he supposes he should see and doesn’t. But whatever. He’s content with his non-answers, and his job gives him the satisfaction of finding them in others, as if to say: _See? I can do it, I just don’t fucking want to! _For now, it’s enough.

It ends, eventually, because Guan Shan’s grey-hued bliss always has a limit, and it’s heralded by the light buzzing of his phone across the surface of his desk. Guan Shan looks at it, and picks it up before it can fall off the edge. He frowns at the caller-ID before accepting.

‘Haven’t heard from you in a while,’ he says. 

‘Are you alone?’ says Grey.

Guan Shan sits up straighter. He’s almost fully healed by now, moving about with only the slightest twinge to his torso, but a day’s work exhausts him and he sleeps more than he ever used to. Eats more, too. At Grey’s question, he self-consciously lowers the lid of his laptop. There’s nothing incriminating on the screen—some vehicle license plates he’s been running through the system for an hour or two—but Grey’s tone sets him on edge. 

‘I’m alone,’ Guan Shan says. ‘What’ve you got?’

‘A lead,’ says Grey. ‘Maybe, I don’t know. I was looking at the CCTV from the day you were attacked in Beijing. I’ve been getting nowhere with that woman’s laptop you gave me—thought I’d try my hand at this instead.’

‘Doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’m done with it.’

‘You don’t want to know where the guy lives?’

A pause. ‘I dropped the case, Grey. It was fuckin’ me up.’ He pauses again and asks, ‘How’d _you_ get the surveillance? It wasn’t wiped?’

‘Not for the first two days,’ says Grey. ‘They were slow with this one, for some reason. It’s usually pretty instant.’

Guan Shan glances at the surface of his desk. It’s golden hour; a bright column of light lies itself flat across the wood. He rubs his thumb over the corner of his laptop, presses it hard against the plastic edge. He Tian had seen that surveillance on the day of the attack, which means he didn’t take it down immediately. Is this why? Because he’d wanted it to be seen—by Guan Shan or someone else who could pass it along?

‘What’s the lead?’ he asks Grey.

‘Thought you’d dropped the case.’

Warningly, ‘I’ll fuckin’ hang up—’ 

‘Jesus, fine. I’ll send it to you. Are you on VPN?’

‘Always.’

‘’Kay, gimme a second.’ There are a series of keyboard taps, the click of a mouse, and Guan Shan refreshes his emails twice until Grey’s email pops up, no subject or body, only Grey’s pre-filled email signature and a single attachment titled ‘Video.mp4’. Guan Shand double clicks on it, and the video opens up.

A black-and-white image of the alleyway opens up on the screen. Guan Shan thinks it’s broken for a few minutes, but he clicks on the fast-forward button and sees the minute movements of sheets billowing in a breeze from balcony ledges. There’s no one to be seen: the alleyway is dull and vacant, as if the city has been stuck in a freeze-frame. And then—there he is. A small, urgent figure darting across the bottom of the screen, phone held to his ear.

Guan Shan shifts, discomforted. There’s something terrible about watching himself like this—something worse about knowing what’s to come. He watches the second figure appear, following at a reasonable distance, watches himself turn in awful realisation once he hears the man’s voice. Words are exchanged, and all too quickly it comes to blows. 

Guan Shan turns it off. 

‘I was there,’ he tells Grey, who’s waiting patiently on the other end of the line. ‘I don’t need to see it again.’

‘Sorry,’ says Grey, and maybe he means it. ‘I watched it to the end—I saw where he went after.’

Guan Shan pauses. ‘As in…’

‘Yup. Skipped through half the city’s fucking the surveillance to track him. He knows the blind spots too well; it was like trying to find a fucking PirateBay proxy that actually works. This took me until this morning, boss, but I think I got him.’

‘To his home?’

‘To wherever he’s staying. I’ve seen him go in and out since the attack—he was still living there when I checked this morning. It’s a serviced apartment block in Heping, just off Xikang Road. Maybe an hour’s drive from your place.’

Guan Shan wants to put his head in his hands. Instead, he only shakes it. ‘Are you gonna invoice me for this?’

‘_Pshaw. _C’mon, Red. You know I want this son of a bitch as much as you after what he did to you. Just wish I knew _why _he did what he did.’

‘Maybe I’ll tell you,’ says Guan Shan. ‘Send me the address?’

‘Mo Guan Shan…’ Grey starts to say, but he has no arsenal. What else could he have hoped for by passing this information along to Guan Shan? 

‘I’ll be careful.’

Grey sighs. ‘I’ll regret this, but it’s not you I’m worried about.’

***

Guan Shan knows the district well enough; it’s inner-city and he’s worked a few cases there in the past. He doesn’t put it into the GPS on his phone, and he leaves his car parked beneath his apartment. The smaller his e-trail, the better. He rides the metro for most of the journey and walks the rest of the way, and wears a cap that will hide his face from some of the street surveillance. He knows he could do better, but he’s stopped caring. Half a mile from the address Grey gave him, Guan Shan pulls out his phone.

_About to do something illegal, _he texts.

Fan Li replies after a couple of minutes. _How much jail time are we looking at?_

Guan Shan snorts. _depends on the judge, right?_

He sees the typing bubble pop up, then disappear. This happens a couple of times, and Guan Shan’s on the verge of laughing. It’s nearly dark. Probably, she’s had a long day, frustrating clients, and is getting ready to leave the office in search of a bottle of wine and a spin class when his messages come through. He doesn’t test her further.

_breaking and entering_, he types. 

_Breaking new boundaries, Mo Guan Shan, _she writes. _Are you expecting an altercation?_

_not if i can help it._

_Perpetrators rarely do. _A minute later she texts: _There’s no real ‘law’ on trespassing private property in China. _

Guan Shan blinks. _so there’s a loophole?_

_It gets hazy. Blame the pre-reform economy and government ownership of property. Or don’t. It makes my job easier._

_i’ll take it, _Guan Shan messages back, and then turns his phone off. He spots a familiar name on the apartment block that he’s approaching, and he stands to one side before approaching the glass double doors that lead into a polished-looking lobby. 

On the street, there’s a small lay-by for cars to park under thirty minutes, and a bike rack where two motorbikes have been propped. One is unmarked, a permit stuck to the small glass shield. The street is a row of apartment blocks and start-up offices; the DiDi driver could have gone into any one of them. Another is set to a rumbling idle, the keys in the ignition; there’s a helmet hanging from the handlebar, a jacket over the seat, and a small, insulated orange bag strapped to the back that is printed with the DiDi logo. It’s a risk worth taking.

Guan Shan takes all three. 

He lowers the visor on the helmet and zips the jacket up to his chin. The bag is empty of food, but the man standing behind the lobby desk doesn’t need to know that.

The concierge looks up, and frowns behind a set of moon-shaped glasses. He can’t be older than Guan Shan. His hair is newly buzzed, as if he’s just finished a stint with the PLA—or dropped out. He makes an irritated sound.

‘Residents have to collect takeout orders from outside,’ he says. ‘You’re not allowed in. You know the rules.’

Guan Shan hesitates, but shakes his phone in the man’s direction. He lifts his visor, just enough to reveal his mouth, and drops his voice slightly. ‘No answer,’ he says, affecting a sense of frustration. ‘I’ve called the guy five times. Can you just buzz me up and I’ll leave the order at the door?’

The man waves a hand. ‘Give it here, I’ll sign.’

‘Has to be the customer,’ says Guan Shan. He feigns resentment. ‘C’mon, man, I already know I’m not gonna get a tip from this fuckin’ _gweilo_. I can’t lose my job, too.’

The man pauses for a moment—‘Please, man?’—then sighs. ‘Fine,’ the concierge says. ‘But don’t make this a habit.’

‘You got it.’

‘Which floor? I’ll buzz you up.’

‘Twenty-third,’ Guan Shan tells him, and the man taps a button on his monitor and tells him to take Elevator Five. Guan Shan takes it. The doors slide shut before the DiDi driver will even realise his helmet is gone.

When Guan Shan hits the twenty-third floor, he steps out into the hallway with a shaky breath. Some nights he wakes up from a nightmare of drowning in dirty gutter water mingled with his blood. His wounds are a ghost that haunt him still; being twenty-three floors above the ground makes the ability to run a little difficult. He takes stock of the emergency exits, one at each end of the hallway—of the camera that sits above the elevator lobby. 

He should’ve tracked down the security company in charge of the building, worked his way into their video surveillance, but he hasn’t changed too much from the kid that threw the rock. Sill impulsive; still pulling blood from stones.

He finds the apartment a few doors down, and takes a breath. There is a ‘Do Not Disturb’ tag on the handle. He pulls down the visor on the helmet, his whole face invisible by the tinted screen, and knocks on the door.

A minute passes, and he knocks again—harder.

No response. 

He could be in there—sleeping, or ignoring the interruption. Or it could be empty. 

Guan Shan will take his chances. What else has he got to lose?

Guan Shan evaluates: get in, get out. Don’t leave marks; don’t take anything the guy will notice. Guan Shan has a few external hard drives in a bag which he keeps strapped around his waist and hidden beneath his shirt. He’ll take data, photograph anything he finds with the small CoolPix compact he has in the back pocket of his jeans, and leave nothing more than his own breath.

There’s an RFID receiver on the door, and Guan Shan produces a key fob from the pouch around his waist. Uncertainly, he waves it near the receiver.

The door clicks, the flicker of a green light, and Guan Shan releases out a held breath. Heat prickles at the back of his neck. The fob had cost him a few months’ salary to buy from a website he shouldn’t have.

Guan Shan listens at the door, works his jaw, and then twists the handle.

***

The air inside the man’s small apartment is stale, as if a window hasn’t been opened for some time. It sits in musty darkness, and Guan Shan flicks on a light near the door. It’s not dirty, or particularly messy, but something presses on him like being inside a coffin—close quarters, little room to breathe. 

He does breathe—evenly, and through his mouth, and he steps cautiously around the space. There’s a small kitchen-living area, a portable electric stove ring on the kitchen counter and a table for two pressed against the wall. Beside the mini fridge, the bin is almost full with microwavable 7-Eleven meals, and there’s a metal fruit bowl with clementines whose peels have started to dry out. 

Behind the pull-out sofa, a sliding sectional divides the living space from the bedroom, barely large enough for the double bed and a side table, and the adjoining bathroom is little more than a wetroom with a glass panel to block off the shower head. The place is tiny, Guan Shan realises, when he’s finished his tour. Probably, the guy is paying more for the serviced apartment for a space half the size of Guan Shan’s place. 

It’s cramped, but enough for one person, and Guan Shan guesses the man needs nothing more than a place to shit and eat and work on the laptop that Guan Shan finds charging underneath the bed. It’s dusty underneath there, and the laptop is joined by two duffel bags that hold cash and a sniper gun in equal weight. Guan Shan stares at both for a minute. He doesn’t touch them, only crouches down and reaches for the laptop.

_How fucking long has this guy been here? _he thinks, brushing off the dust from the laptop lid with a gloved hand. _Months? Longer? _Guan Shan’s mind begins to tick. The guy could’ve rented this place long before January—before he killed Fan Xuemei in Hebin.

Guan Shan sits on the edge of the bed, the pilfered motorbike helmet and delivery bag set down at his feet, and opens the laptop. It’s password-protected, and Guan Shan pulls out a USB stick from his bag and plugs it in. The cracking software loads, and he lets it whirr for a moment. Guan Shan glances at the clock on the bedside.

It’s been five minutes already. He’d entered the apartment on a whim; he has no idea how long the man’s been gone, or when he’s coming back. Time is an unknown, and it isn’t on his side. If the man has any strict verification software, he might get a message to his phone that says his laptop’s been used. It’s happened before, with less unsuspecting individuals. As soon as it's unlocked, there’ll be a countdown on Guan Shan’s head.

His leg shakes with impatience, and he chews on his lip while the software works through passwords without locking Guan Shan out. It doesn’t usually take this long. He could take the laptop, but theft is a can of worms he doesn’t want to open, let alone on a traceable object. Guan Shan could wipe the machine to disable any tracking software, but he’d lose the data he needs—if there’ll be anything at all.

_No, _he thinks. He’ll fucking _laugh _if there’s nothing useable on a laptop hidden amongst a sniper rifle and the biggest stack of cash Guan Shan has ever seen in his life. 

He glances at the lock again. Ten minutes.

‘Come on,’ he mutters. ‘Don’t have all fuckin’ day.’

As if it hears him, the cracking software window goes green. 

He’s in.

Guan Shan sends a silent prayer to whatever is looking over him right now, and lets out a woosh of air as he takes in the newly loaded desktop screen—and then goes cold.

‘Oh, fuck,’ he whispers. 

He’s broken into computers like this before—remotely, and easily, all attached to a particular ID. The desktop background gives it away. The man could be a nationalist fanatic, and Guan Shan would be happy to accept that, but he knows he’s wrong. There’s a wrenching in his gut. 

The man’s desktop background is the National Emblem, set in hues of red and gold. In the corner of the screen is his government ID. 8165-T. Guan Shan’s never seen the ‘T’ suffix before.

The man isn’t some hired gun; he isn’t a hitman. He’s a civil servant.

It’s cool in the apartment, but Guan Shan’s heart is starting to stutter in his chest and he’s suddenly stiflingly warm. 

He should have seen this coming. He Tian’s cageyness is obvious now. 

Why else would he have turned up at Guan Shan’s apartment in January if the threat hadn’t been bigger than just some paid killer? Why else would he have told Guan Shan to stop looking if the hand feeding 8165-T’s mouth didn’t belong to He Tian’s very same employer?

_They’re killing their own, _he thinks, with razor-like clarity. _It’s a cull._

His gaze sharpens on the screen. He has to focus; he can dissect this new knowledge later. He needs a mirror of the computer—a direct, identical copy of the laptop that he can work through later. He could’ve brought a camera to fix in the corner of the room, or screwed in a chip on the underside of the laptop so he could remotely access at any time knowing 8165-T wouldn’t be using it, but the guy is trained. He’d spot a camera a mile off.

After a few seconds, Guan Shan pulls out his phone, turns it on, and dials Grey’s number. 

Grey answers with a ‘_lo?_

‘I need your help.’

There is a smile in Grey’s voice. ‘Ah, boss… You should know those words help me sleep at night.’

‘I’m serious,’ Guan Shan says, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder while plugs in another USB, which has a chained tag on it that reads, _Mirror._ ‘I need you to make a back-up for me. I’m about to send you the mirror.’

‘You’re at that guy’s place?’ Grey asks, sounding alert. ‘You’re okay?’

‘I will be if you help me.’

‘Alright,’ says Grey, wary. ‘A little context?’ 

In the background, Guan Shan can hear the groan of Grey’s desk chair as he settles in front of his computer system, and the clack of fingers on a keyboard. 

Where does Guan Shan even begin?

‘Government. Probably ex-PLASF. He shot a woman in Hebin a few months ago. He’s killed more maybe, I dunno. I don’t have the tools with me to bypass the security system.’

Unsaid: _I didn’t think I’d need them. _

‘Woah, woah—_that’s_ who you faced in Beijing?’ Grey asks, a twinge of fear in his voice. _‘This_ is the shit you’ve gotten into?’

‘Grey—’

‘And you’ve got a hold of his laptop? Please tell me you’ve taken it and gone somewhere fucking safe, boss. In the fucking _least.’_

‘Just get the mirror, Grey,’ Guan Shan urges. ‘I don’t know how long he’ll be gone.’

Grey swears on the other end of line, something about recklessness and death wish, but Guan Shan sees a flicker on the screen that says Grey has connected remotely. A cursor drifts across the screen like a ghost, and Guan Shan watches as Grey works through the laptop’s hard drive and takes copies. He works fast, but Guan Shan’s skin has started to itch. He can’t stop looking at the clock, as if it’s warning him. 

‘Nearly done,’ Grey tells him. 

‘Good.’

He should distract himself, look for any physical data left scattered around, hidden in drawers or down the back of the sofa bed, but Guan Shan knows it would be a waste of time. There are those who spill their secrets to him in scraps of paper and unmonitored online forums and counterfeit documentation gone wrinkled and dry behind radiators. There are others who keep their life on nothing but a thumbdrive clipped to their car keys. 8165-T is one of the latter.

‘Done,’ says Grey. 

Guan Shan blinks at the screen. Grey has disconnected.

‘Thanks,’ Guan Shan says gruffly, mouth feeling dry. He logs off, shuts down, and slides the laptop back to the spot he found it, where a rectangular patch of the floorboard is dust-free. For effect, he swipes a gloved hand through the grime on the floor and tries to brush it across the lid.

‘I’m looking at this data already, boss,’ Grey says, voice distant. ‘There are profiles on here. Like, deadlist shit.’ There’s a pause, the creak of Grey’s chair. ‘I… I’m gonna be honest. I don’t like it. ’

‘Stop lookin’ then,’ Guan Shan orders. ‘The more you know…’ He lets Grey fill in the blanks.

‘Yeah,’ says Grey, and he clears his throat. ‘You gonna get out of there now? Please?’

‘I’m leavin’, don’t worry.’

‘Boss… Sometimes you kinda make it impossible _not_ to.’

‘I’ll call you later,’ says Guan Shan. ‘I’m switchin’ off.’

He zips away the USB sticks into the pouch at his waist and tugs over his shirt, then he swipes the bike helmet and the orange DiDi delivery bag off the floor, fixes both in place, and glances around. Nothing’s changed; he touched nothing but the laptop, and everything is still in its place. He walks out the bedroom. He clicks the lights off by the front door, his boots sounding heavy as he crosses the wood-effect plastic flooring. At the door, he taps the security screen on the wall. The camera blinks to life outside. The hallway is empty.

Guan Shan pauses, questions himself only for a moment, then strides quickly back into the bedroom. He reaches beneath the bed, the helmet visor blurring his vision, and feels his fingers close around a neat stack of cash—for his time. He knows it’s probably blood money, but he’s paid out enough. It’s collateral. He shoves the cash down the back of his waistband while he stalks back into the living area. A glance at the video feed tells him the hallway is still empty.

Guan Shan takes his chance and steps out into the hall.

The door to the apartment clicks shut behind him, and his heart is beating heavy as he steps away from the door and makes his way down the hallway. He gets to the elevator, presses the ‘Down’ button, and waits. The elevator is already on its way up, and Guan Shan goes still as the numbers climb closer to the twenty-third floor. Whoever is already riding it hasn’t gotten out. 

Slowly, he turns to look at the door to the emergency stairwell. He weighs his options. He wouldn’t make it in time.

The elevator is three floors away now.

Two.

One.

The doors slide open. 

_Fuck._

Guan Shan moves mindlessly to one side as 8165-T steps out. He’s carrying a plastic 7-Eleven bag at his side. 

Something crackles in Guan Shan’s head like a poorly tuned radio feed, all static. He thinks about swinging a fist. He thinks about breaking the guy’s neck and dragging his body into the stale apartment and leaving on the DND sign. How long would it take for someone to find him? How long would it take for some other T-suffix agent to turn up at Guan Shan’s door and take him out?

It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t help. Guan Shan would have the benefit of surprise, but his advantages end there. He isn’t He Tian.

Instead, 8165-T walks past him without incident. Guan Shan steps into the elevator and then— 

‘Hey,’ says Guan Shan, dropping his voice slightly.

He doesn’t know why he says it. 

A death wish, like Grey had said? A test—just to see if he can, words muffled behind the visor?

8165-T turns his head slightly. He pauses, frowning. His mouth twists, like he might say something, but then he nods, passes, and his footsteps are a low echo down the hallway. Nothing more. 

Guan Shan presses the button for the Ground Floor and smiles beneath the helmet. It lasts until the elevator doors shut, and then he collapses against the back wall, clutching at his chest. 

Too fucking close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you'd like to show your thanks, please leave a kudos or comment, or consider supporting me further in ways that are [linked on my Tumblr.](http://agapaic.tumblr.com) Wishing you all health and happiness!


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